Fed up with a widespread culture of corruption, abuse, nepotism and kleptocracy by top officials, Ukraine’s citizens have long called for their lawmakers, judges and the president to be stripped of special status that renders them untouchable.
President Viktor Yanukovych’s camp claim they are on the verge of delivering on this promise. Don’t be fooled again by their shams.
After having failed to deliver reforms that would improve living standards for average Ukrainians, the popularity of Yanukovych’s ruling Party of Regions has plunged. They are understandably desperate to win back voter support.
So, this summer they pushed legislation through parliament in a first reading that proposes stripping officials of immunity from prosecution. But conveniently for Yanukovych, their master, the constitutional court is in cahoots.
After unconstitutionally switching Ukraine back to an older constitution that grants the president more powers, the court has demonstrated loyalty to him yet again. On July 11 it ignored basic logic and interpretation of the constitution, selectively ruling that while lawmakers can strip themselves of immunity, the president and judges remain untouchable.
The only benefactors of this new system approved by the long-discredited Constitutional Court judges will be Yanukovych and his subservient cronies – a clan which already stands accused of persecuting opposition politicians, and shaking down business through the nation’s notoriously corrupt courts.
The plot is crystal clear. Yanukovych fears that he could lose his monopolistic control on domestic political power. As insurance against this possible loss, immunity is being removed from lawmakers in a parliament that could soon be taken over by the opposition.
In contrast to the past, lawmakers are now to become powerless pawns. They can be jailed at the will of the untouchables.
In this new system, legislators will hardly be able to function as an equal but independent branch of government. There will be no checks and balances.
A new, vertical power structure – control through the courts – is being established.
