The participants of the Ukrainian-German legal seminar visited the Constitutional Court of Ukraine

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The participants of the Ukrainian-German legal seminar

visited the Constitutional Court of Ukraine

 

On May 27, 2014 on the request of the Faculty of Law of the National University of "Kyiv-MohylaAcademy" a group of participants of the Ukrainian-German seminar on legal regulation of political parties and public organisations composed of doctors of law and political science, young scholars, and students who work and study at the Political Parties Law Institute at the University of Düsseldorf visited the Constitutional Court of Ukraine where they met judges of the Constitutional Court PetroStetsiuk, Viktor Shyshkin, Stanislav Shevchuk, and Dean of the Faculty of Law of the National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" Andrii Meleshevych.

In Andrii Meleshevych opinion, studying of problems of inner-party discipline and the system of decision-making in political parties and social movements is a very important topic, as there is no inner-party democracy in Ukraine. In due timeGermany also experienced such problems, and therefore regulation of this issue at the legislative level was introduced. Andrii Meleshevychconsiders that time has come for such decision to be taken in Ukraine, so it is important for the participants of the Ukrainian-German seminar to know the thoughts of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine regarding inner-party and social movement democracy.

Viktor Shyshkin informed the guests about the history of the formation of the Ukrainian constitutionalism from the revival of the national statehood in the early 1990s. The judge who participated in drafting the Constitution of Ukraine and the Law of Ukraine "On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine", explained the difficulties that the Ukrainian constitutionalism had faced at its birth in terms of opposition of the young democracy with a totalitarian system. In creating the legislation in the period of formation of constitutional justice German colleagues provided substantial assistance to the Ukrainian lawyers. Therefore it is not surprising that the structure of the effective law on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is largely correlated with the that on the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. Of course, with appropriate changes that have been made on the basis of our national views on the constitutional litigation, admitted Viktor Shyshkin.

As regards political parties, the judge focused on the fact that unlike the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has no authority to terminate their registration, since this falls under the jurisdiction ofadministrative proceedings. But the prohibition of political parties may be the subject matter of the Constitutional Court’s consideration, and the Court has such jurisprudence: in due time the Court considered the petition on the constitutionality of an act of the presidium of the VerkhovnaRada of the Ukrainian SSR to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine.

The Court’s possibilities in regulation of political parties are limited by the authorities on interpretation of the Constitution and laws ofUkraine, which the Court is vested in according to the legislation, continued judge Petro Stetsiuk. During the whole period of its activity the Constitutional Court of Ukraine had very few cases directly related to the topic. As one of the few examples he cited the case on the procedure of formation of a coalition of deputy factions in the parliament, which concerned party and faction discipline. In general, said Peter Stetsiuk, the possibility of the Constitutional Court to consider certain cases largely depends on the direction of the political process in the country. "I think we are on the eve of new cases, perhaps in a direction that will be relevant to the topic of our meeting", said Petro Stetsiuk.

Another aspect of the problem of political discipline was highlighted by judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Stanislav Shevchuk, who said that during the previous government the constitutional requirements for MPs’ personal voting in parliament were frequently violated. And as much as the question of liability for MPs who violated those rules had not been regulated in Ukraine, the issue became the subject of consideration by the European Court of Human Rights in "Oleksandr Volkov v. Ukraine". However, the judge expressed his optimism concerning the recovery of legitimacy in all areas as well as further development and improvement of constitutional justice in Ukraine. "We all hope that Ukraine begins a new phase of consolidation of constitutional jurisdiction", said Stanislav Shevchuk.

During the meeting, constitutionalists have responded to a large number of questions regarding various theoretical and practical aspects of law-making in Ukraine as well as the activities of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Moreover, judges gave thorough answers to questions on the necessity to introduce the institute of the constitutional complaint in Ukraine, ways to improve the protection of human rights, restore confidence of society in the constitutional justice, strengthen the independence of judges etc. In their turn, the guests thanked the judges and wished constitutionalistssuccesses in their work.