Registering Irresponsibility
The past parliamentary week has brought contradictory results. On the one hand, Verkhovna Rada passed a number of key laws, including the new Criminal Code, and, in the second reading, the draft law On the President of Ukraine, which brings the status of the head of state in line with the Constitution. The bill contains a clause on the way the president assumes office and exercises his powers in his relationship with the parliament in the fields of foreign policy, national security, and defense. The document also includes a provision on the early termination of the president’s powers in case of his resignation, inability to discharge his duty due to ill health, dismissal from office by way of impeachment, or death. A number of the bill’s clauses were deferred for a third reading.
A newly-worded law On Political Parties of Ukraine was passed with due account of the head of state’s proposals. Out of 18 proposals from the president, five were approved fully, six partially, and seven rejected. The law had already been passed in December 1999, only to be vetoed by Leonid Kuchma. In March 2000, the presidential veto overridden by 351 votes, i.e., with active participation of the majority, a fact to be discussed below. The president again vetoed the measure, so the law had to be modified by a joint ad hoc commission. Now Ukraine has at last met its years-long commitment to the Council of Europe to pass a law on parties. The lawmakers also passed the law On a Special Prosecutor and Special Investigators. A special prosecutor can only be appointed by the Prosecutor General on Verkhovna Rada’s recommendation for a period of five years. Special investigators are to be appointed by the special prosecutor.
But, on the other hand, people’s deputies failed to pass in the first reading the bill on the parliamentary majority and opposition. Out of 394 registered deputies, 172 voted in favor and 128 against. This thus leaves the notions of majority and opposition blurred, unable to be clearly interpreted, and, accordingly, having an indefinite status, rights, duties, and responsibility. The bill defined the parliamentary majority as a voluntary association of deputies in a number comprising a majority of Verkhovna Rada’s constitutional strength (226). The parliament speaker is to be the majority leader. The document called for the president’s consultations with the Verkhovna Rada speaker and vice speakers on a candidate for prime minister and consultations between the prime minister and parliamentary leaders about candidates for central executive offices. In case the majority fails to materialize, shrinks to a size less than half the constitutional strength of parliament, announces the termination of its activities, and does not resume these within a month, the president can dissolve Verkhovna Rada ahead of schedule.
Among those who opposed this bill were the fractions of the Communist Party, Fatherland, the Ukrainian Popular Movement (Rukh), Reforms Congress, and some of the Socialists.
But at the same time the not legalized majority is being reregistered. UNR and Reforms Congress are affixing their signatures without scruples. The situation is absurd in that the re-registration is being held on the same basis as a year ago, namely, of the declaration to back the program of the president, although some of the already re-registered have publicly stated their opposition to it. Fatherland seems to be the only faction of the former majority that has stated in unambiguous terms it is not joining the new majority. In an interview with Forum (www. for-ua.com), UNR leader Yuri Kostenko opined that membership in the Forum of National Salvation and the parliamentary majority do not contradict each other. Volodymyr Filenko, simultaneously a member of the Reform Congress faction and the FNS council, was one of the first to affix his signature to the re-registration document. Asked to explain if membership in the majority and that in the FNS mix well, he said: “Just fine. We’re going to work the way we did.” This dialectical materialist methodology seems to have struck firm roots in the consciousness of the Ukrainian political world.
A rhetorical question: what kind of a majority has arisen in Verkhovna Rada as a result of all the latest developments, including the re-registration? The problem of responsibility (or irresponsibility) is pressing as never before. The entity, now being referred to as the majority, is sure to be further torn asunder primarily by force of different political interests. This inevitably puts the government in a quandary. SDPU(o) leader Oleksandr Zinchenko said in this connection that his faction would not sign the agreement between the parliament and cabinet, following the decision of UNR and Reform Congress faction to vote against the law on the majority. The government will thus again fall hostage to the inconsistency (or, rather, deliberate game) of its staunchest advocates.
