Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Yurii Baulin met with the delegation of the German Bundestag MPs

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Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Yurii Baulin met with the delegation of the German Bundestag MPs

 

On June 11, 2014 the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Yurii Baulin met with members of the Committee on Legal Policy and Consumer Protection of the German Bundestag. The meeting was attended by judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Ihor Slidenko, Viktor Shyshkin,Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Ukraine Christof Weil, Deputy Director of the German Foundation for International Legal Co-operation Stefan Hülshörster, representatives of the Court’s Secretariat.

            Yurii Baulin emphasised the high level of co-operation between Ukrainian and Germanconstitutionalists, which resulted in a series of productive bilateral meetings in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine for the past two years. In particular, the Court’s Chairman noted friendly, time-testedrelationships between the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the German Foundation for International Legal Co-operation, which has been areliable Court’s partner since 1996.

         In her turn, the Chairman of the German Bundestag Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection Renate Künast asked theconstitutionalists to give their assessment of the legal situation in the country and the procedure for amending the Constitution of Ukraine. "We are interested in visiting Ukraine more often and knowing about the amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, taking into consideration debatesin the Parliament," said Renate Künast.

Chairman Baulin informed the interlocutors about the procedure for amending the Constitution of Ukraine and the role of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in this process. Hereby, he said, any draft constitutional amendments must be submitted to the Constitutional Court and in case of a positive Court’s opinion it must be adopted with no changes by the qualified constitutional majority of the Verkhovna Radaof Ukraine. Yet he noted that at this time there is no any draft law on amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, although the necessity for such changes is stressed on the level of the Head of the State as well as among politicians and lawyers.

The German parliamentarians asked the constitutionalists to express their views concerning the calls for decentralisation and federalisation of Ukraine, which come out from the Eastern regions of Ukraine. In this respect, judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Viktor Shyshkin noted that the issue of federalisation of Ukraine has never emerged neither at public nor at political level, since there had never been any political and historical reasons for that. The judge, who once had worked on the draft Constitution of Ukraine as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, said that in the early 1990's legislators had proposed the Ukrainian regions, including Donetsk region, a program of decentralisation - granting more powers to local authorities, but it was not accepted.

Judge Ihor Slidenko considers that the problem lies in non-conformity of the current system of local self-government of Ukraine with modern European standards, as this system was built on the Soviet model and does not focus on financial sustainability of regions but on the total control over citizens and local agencies. He suggested that the administrative-territorial structure of Ukraine will be changed in the future constitutional reform. "But in any case, Ukraine will remain a unitary state", said Ihor Slidenko.

Having heard the positions of the judges, German MPs expressed their understanding that the slogans of decentralisation andfederalisation of Ukraine that are being imposed from the East, in fact, are aimed not at economic reform but on pushing some regions towards political autonomy and furtheron to their ultimate separation from the state.

During the meeting the guests were also interested in tasks, powers, organisation of the activities of sole body of the constitutionaljurisdiction in Ukraine, the principles of formation of the composition of judges, constitutional proceedings etc.

In conclusion, Renate Künast on behalf of the Committee members thanked the Chairman and judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine for the opportunity to visit the Court and obtain detailed clarification on the issues raised by the German legislators.