Court rejects appeal against Romania-Ukraine treaty

BUCHAREST - Romania's Constitutional Court on July 18 rejected an appeal against a friendship treaty with Ukraine submitted by half of the judges of the Supreme Court.

The treaty confirms existing borders between the two neighboring countries and resolves long-standing disputes over the borderlands of southern Bessarabia and northern Bukovyna, as well as ownership of the Zmiynyi Island, which now belongs to Ukraine. It was signed by Presidents Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine and Emil Constantinescu of Romania on June 2.

The Constitutional Court rejected the challenge by 17 Supreme Court judges on the grounds that it was submitted after President Constantinescu signed the treaty into law. The court said the appeal was made after President Constantinescu had promulgated the law on the treaty previously ratified by the Romanian Parliament and that it fell in line with the Romanian Constitution of 1991. The Supreme Court judges had argued that the treaty violated the Constitution, which proclaims Romania as a "unitary and indivisible state."

Romania's Chamber of Deputies, its lower house, ratified the treaty on June 26 by a vote of 165-92. The Senate followed on July 7 by a vote of 65-50. In both houses, Romania's three opposition parties voted against approval.

Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada also has approved the document, the same day the Romanian Supreme court judges were trying to have it declared illegal, reported Reuters.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, July 27, 1997, No. 30, Vol. LXV

| Home Page |