Program Participant Dmytro Terletskyi Comments on Draft Laws on Amendments to Constitution
The Parliament of Ukraine voted in favor of removing the immunity from the people’s deputies and referred to the Constitutional Court seven more draft amendments to the Constitution proposed by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Tomorrow’s Lawyer” decided to dig to the essence of these changes. Dmitry Terletsky, a Program participant, Head of the Department of Constitutional Law of the Odessa National Law Academy, candidate of legal sciences, contributed to this review.
Abolishment of Deputies’ Immunities
The Parliament has completely removed the following two provisions from Article 80 of the Constitution:
- “The People’s Deputies of Ukraine are guaranteed parliamentary immunity”;
- “The People’s Deputies of Ukraine cannot be prosecuted, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.”
The part that states: “People’s Deputies of Ukraine are not legally responsible for the results of voting or other statements in the parliament and its bodies, except for liability for insult or defamation” remains unchanged.
“The amendments approved by parliament will come into force on January 1, 2020. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that the deputies already have lost their immunity status. However, neither the Criminal Procedure Code, the Law on the Status of the People’s Deputy, nor the Law on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada were amended. Thus, the legislation contains rules that provide for a complicated procedure for removal of immunity to hold a Member of Parliament accountable.
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Full text of the draft laws on amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine is available on the Ukrainian web-page.
Namely regarding:
- Abolishment of Deputies’ Immunities
- Reducing the number of MPs to 300 and securing a proportional electoral system
- Additional grounds for early termination of powers of the People’s Deputy of Ukraine
- Abolishment of the monopoly of lawyers
- On NABU, SBI and regulators
- Legislative initiative of the people
- On the designated representatives of the Verkhovna Rada
- Advisory, consultative and other subsidiary bodies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
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The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the “Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program, the Ukrainian Bar Association, the Bar Association of Legal Aid Providers, the Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine Project, the Canadian Bureau for International Education, or the Government of Canada and the Law Enforcement Section of the United States Embassy in Ukraine.
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