Parliament committee acts on Kuchma impeachment (09/14/97)

Parliament committee acts on Kuchma impeachment

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada began the initial process in the impeachment of President Leonid Kuchma on September 4, when the legislature's Committee on Legal and Judicial Reform voted to bring a motion for impeachment to the legislature's floor.

The committee members accused the president of long neglecting the duties imposed on him by the Constitution and by a vote of 7 to 3 agreed to begin to move toward impeachment. The president is also accused of abuse of power, which is a criminal offense.

The committee's action is specifically in response to President Kuchma's decision to veto the law on local self-rule, not once, but three times.

The president had originally proposed that as part of the administrative reform bill, regional and local councils would be elected, while their heads would remain presidential appointees. The president's bill was amended to make all the positions elected ones before it passed the Verkhovna Rada. When President Kuchma received the bill for signing, he vetoed it with remarks. It was returned to the Verkhovna Rada where the veto was overturned in a muddled process that the president's chief of staff called "unconstitutional." The president used that reasoning in vetoing the bill again. That veto was also overridden and the bill returned, which the president sent back a third time.

Although the political ping-pong over the law being played between the president and the Verkhovna Rada is an obvious strategic game in which the president is fighting efforts to take away his power base in the regions, Committee on Judicial and Legal Reform Secretary Ihor Koliushko said on September 4 that it was a purely juridical decision that the committee made. "The members of our committee represent seven factions: Communists, Agrarians, Socialists, Rukh, Reforms, Constitutional Center, the Inter-regional Bloc." He also underscored that a Parliament committee and not a political faction is initiating the process.

However, with no procedure for the process of impeachment delineated in the Constitution or on the legal books, the motion only got as far as the chairman's desk before it was temporarily shelved. Assistant Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Viktor Musiyaka, acting for Chairman Oleksander Moroz who is still hospitalized after having his gall bladder removed, proposed at the September 9 session of the legislature that before impeachment proceedings move along any further, a Verkhovna Rada Committee on Rules and Procedure should be given the task of delineating procedure and codifying it.

Mr. Musiyaka, a legal expert who is considered one of the more level-headed and practical members of the legislature, said the Constitution is very vague on the process of impeachment. "For example Article 119 states that impeachment proceedings against the president are initiated by the Verkhovna Rada by a vote," explained Mr. Musiyaka. "I see a problem already with the word 'initiate.' Is it an open floor vote or a secret ballot? And how does the president defend himself should the proceedings begin? Does he appear before the investigative committee?"

Mr. Musiyaka called on the members of Parliament to restrain their emotions and political nature, and move ahead strictly by the law. In the end the legislative body voted to support Mr. Musiyaka's proposal.

Under Ukraine's Constitution, a proposal to impeach the president must be approved first by a simple majority of deputies (226 votes), after which the Verkhovna Rada may form investigative committees to determine whether or not there are sufficient grounds to warrant impeachment. If the committee finds there is sufficient seriousness, the entire legislative body must approve by a two-thirds vote (300 deputies) a decision to accuse the president of a crime. Commission findings are then sent to the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Ukraine. If the judicial bodies agree with the commission's findings, the Verkhovna Rada can vote for removal of the president from office, which requires the support of 75 percent (338 votes) of the deputies.

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