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Ukraine’s MPs are due to take up drafts constitutional reform today, the drafts that have been prepared by the Batkivshchina and UDAR party factions. The opposition insists on a return to the constitution of 2004 and on setting limits on presidential powers. Meanwhile, the EU Foreign Ministers are due to meet in Brussels this Monday to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Sweden and Poland will come up with their proposals on changing the stand on Ukraine.
Besides a return to the old constitution, the drafts provide for a simplified system of impeachment and voting, and also deprive the President of any role to play in the Constitutional Court lineup. The opposition feels the Court should be formed by the MPs and a congress of Ukraine’s judges. Unlike the constitution of 2004, which restricted presidential powers, the currently presented draft actually turns Yanukovych into a figurehead President, says the Director of the Institute for Strategic Planning, Alexander Gusev, and elaborates.
“The changes under discussion will largely trim the presidential powers, reducing his function to receiving credentials from foreign Ambassadors. The President’s duties will boil down to representing Ukraine during receptions. He will de facto stop being Head of State, with all powers due to be transferred to Parliament”.
The following is the text of the agreement signed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders in the presence of EU envoys to end the ex-Soviet country's three-month crisis.
1. Within 48 hours of the signing of this agreement, a special law will be adopted, signed and promulgated, which will restore the Constitution of 2004 including amendments passed until now. Signatories declare their intention to create a coalition and form a national unity government within 10 days thereafter.
2. Constitutional reform, balancing the powers of the President, the government and parliament, will start immediately and be completed in September 2014.
3. Presidential elections will be held as soon as the new Constitution is adopted but no later than December 2014. New electoral laws will be passed and a new Central Election Commission will be formed on the basis of proportionality and in accordance with the OSCE & Venice commission rules.
4. Investigation into recent acts of violence will be conducted under joint monitoring from the authorities, the opposition and the Council of Europe.
5. The authorities will not impose a state of emergency. The authorities and the opposition will refrain from the use of violence.
6. The Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, Poland and the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation call for an immediate end to all violence and confrontation.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has announced that, to settle the crisis in Ukraine, he will initiate the reinstatement of the 2004 constitution and call early presidential elections. He also called for starting the procedure of forming a government of national confidence. "I am announcing steps that need to be made in order to restore peace and avoid more victims of the standoff," Yanukovych said in a statement available on the presidential website on Friday.
"These tragic days when Ukraine has taken the gravest losses and when people has died my duty is to state that human lives are very important. We should do our best to take joint steps to restore peace in Ukraine," Yanukovych said.
"I declare the steps that should be taken to restore calm and avoid new victims," the Ukrainian president said.
"I state that I initiate early presidential elections and return the 2004 Constitution by redistributing powers from the president to the parliament," Yanukovych said.
(Feb 03, 2009) On January 15, 2009, the Ukrainian legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, adopted the Law on Special Temporary Investigative Commissions, which simplifies the procedure for the legislative body to impeach the President. Previously, the impeachment procedure could be initiated on the basis of a petition signed by three-quarters of the parliamentarians. The new Law provides that the formation of a Special Investigative Commission is the formal beginning of the impeachment process. Such a Commission must be formed upon the request of a simple majority of the Rada's members. The original sponsors of a bill on the creation of a Special Investigative Commission cannot recall their signatures and withdraw the proposed bill. Legal justification and evidential materials must accompany the bill. The Law requires the Commission to finish its investigation within a three-month period, although the first report must be submitted to the Rada no later than at the end of the second month of its work. If the Commission's conclusion is supported by the Rada, the case will be submitted to the Supreme and Constitutional Courts.
Continued belowedit on 29-10-2014 by Xcathdra because: (no reason given)
Rada has simplified the procedure of impeachment
01/15/2009 19:23 | Ria "Novosti"
The Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law on the ad hoc investigatory commissions, which simplifies the procedure of impeachment of the President.
The adoption of law 408 Lawmakers voted 226 votes required. In Parliament recently, repeatedly sounded calls for impeachment of President Viktor Yushchenko. To declare impeachment requires the support of three-fourths of the constitutional composition of the Parliament, in which 450 places.
A bill on the special temporary investigative commissions supported 171 of 175 deputies from the party of regions faction, 155 of the 156 deputies from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, 36 of the 72 members of the pro-presidential faction "Our Ukraine-people's Self-Defense bloc, all 27 Communists and 19 of 20 deputies of the faction of the bloc of Lytvyn.
The Bill regulates the legal status and operating procedure of commissions of inquiry for impeachment proceedings.
To remove the president from power, at least three-quarters of Rada members must assent.
The Rada didn’t follow this procedure at all. No investigatory commission was established and the Courts were not involved. On 22 February, the Rada simply passed a bill removing President Yanukovych from office.
Furthermore, the bill wasn’t even supported by three-quarters of Rada members as required by Article 111 – it was supported by 328 members, when it required 338 (since the Rada has 450 members).
According to Article 94 of the constitution, laws passed by the Rada require the signature of the President to come into force, so no law passed by the Rada since 22 February has been properly enacted.
On 22 February, there was no prime minister – Mykola Azarov had resigned as prime minister on 28 January 2014 (when efforts were being made by Yanukovych to bring the opposition into government) and he hadn’t been replaced. Instead, the speaker of the Rada, Olexander Turchynov (a close ally of opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko) was appointed as Acting President on 23 February. He had become speaker the day before, upon the resignation of Volodymyr Rybak, an ally of Yanukovych, who resigned that morning because of ill health. The BBC reported that, according to Yanukovych, Rybak “was forced to resign because he had been physically beaten”
The vote to "remove Viktor Yanukovych from the post of president of Ukraine" was passed by 328 MPs.
Is concerned about the rising nationalistic sentiment in Ukraine, expressed in support for the Svoboda Party, which, as a result, is one of the two new parties to enter the Verkhovna Rada; recalls that racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles and therefore appeals to pro-democratic parties in the Verkhovna Rada not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party;
Ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych received Russian aid to escape the country in February, President Vladimir Putin said.
Russia helped to evacuate Yanukovych to Crimea, when the Black Sea peninsula was still part of Ukraine, and then agreed to assist him across the border into Russia, Putin told the annual Valdai Club meeting in Sochi today.
“I won’t conceal it that we helped him move to Crimea,” he said. “At that moment, Crimea was part of Ukraine. As the events in Kiev were developing very quickly and violently, it made no sense for him to return to Kiev.”
Putin’s comments mark the first time Russia has said it helped Yanukovych to flee into exile after months of anti-government protests in Kiev. Putin admitted in April that the soldiers who took control of Crimea before his annexation of the Black Sea territory were Russian. He’d previously denied that Russia’s military was involved.
The takeover of Crimea, which prompted the U.S. and its allies to impose sanctions, complied with United Nations norms, Putin said. The transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine under the Soviet Union had been illegal, he said.
The Final Act obligates its signatories to "refrain…from the threat or use of force" against each other. According to the act, participating states "regard as inviolable one another's frontiers" and "will refrain now and in the future from assaulting those frontiers." They "will respect the territorial integrity of each of the participating states" and "will likewise refrain from making each other's territory the object of military occupation."
In addition, the participating states agree to "refrain from any intervention, direct or indirect, in the internal or external affairs" of another participating state.
Ukraine agreed to transfer all of its nuclear arms to Russia.
In exchange, Russia, the US and the UK reaffirmed "their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine." They also agreed "to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine….if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used."
Ukrainian MPs vote to oust President Yanukovych
This was the reason to send "green men" to Crimea to defend them against nazis.
“At that moment, Crimea was part of Ukraine."
Ironically, on 6 March 2014, President Obama signed an Executive Order that “authorizes sanctions on individuals and entities responsible for activities undermining democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine”. By rights, the list of individuals should have included himself, his Secretary of State, John Kerry, and, of course, his Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria (F**k the EU) Nuland.
how about you understand some of the real reasons
Why is it you and a couple other's have to interject the ME into a UKraine thread as if it has any relevance whatsoever?
Thanks for telling me how I understand anything...
You have proved many times your high qualification in geopolitics.
Think about it.