Although Ukrainians don’t want their members of parliament to be above the law, lawmakers have been slow in lifting their legal immunity from prosecution for serious crimes. Many agree that lawmakers’ public statements and votes should be legally protected as part of their official duties, but not serious crimes.
Cancelling lawmaker immunity from criminal prosecution was one of the demands of the EuroMaidan Revolution. And when parliament recently advanced a draft law with this aim, initiated by President Petro Poroshenko the move was popularly embraced. But obstacles remain, including the Constitutional Court, inertia and no clear idea to what extent lawmaker immunity is permissible or even necessary.
Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Groysman has said that lawmakers will return to the draft law in September after they amend the Constitution and receive an approval from the Constitutional Court and Venice Commission. If the bill is passed and enacted into law, immunity will be lifted and no approval by parliament will be required to arrest or detain lawmakers (as is now required).
European Union countries do not offer their politicians total, blanket immunity from prosecution. Lawmakers, however, have legal protections related to their votes as public officials and the views they express while carrying out their legislative and professional duties. Similarly, the Ukrainian draft law offers immunity for lawmakers for opinions expressed in their work as legislators.
“We will have voting on this law and I know the mood of many lawmakers who support it,” Groysman told the Kyiv Post. “Immunity causes irresponsibility and impunity, which cause organized crime. Maybe for corrupt lawmakers we will even do something good, as the absence of immunity will prevent them from committing crimes.”
In Ukraine, blanket immunity from criminal prosecution for lawmakers, combined with notoriously corrupt and ineffective prosecutors and judiciary, has led to numerous cases of abuse. Members of parliament have even been able to get away with murder, financial corruption and other serious crimes.
One high-profile case involved former lawmaker and member of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s parliamentary faction, Viktor Lozynsky. His fellow lawmakers cancelled his immunity from prosecution, but he fled and managed to avoid prosecution for a 2009 murder for two years. In 2011, however, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail. The sentence was then commuted to 10 years and he was freed in 2013 for health reasons. He returned to prison in 2014.
At the end of 2014, in another high-profile case, the Prosecutor’s General Office brought charges against Yuriy Ivanyushchenko, a former lawmaker who was being investigated for his involvement in crimes connected with the embezzlement of state funds and their illegal transfer during the tenure of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych. At the time, Ivanyushchenko was a member of the then-ruling Party of Regions. He fled the country and is currently on a wanted list.
Nevertheless, there has been no move to lift immunity since February, and experts doubt this can happen any time soon.
Legislative attempts in the past to cancel the total immunity of parliament members have not been successful.
The Constitutional Court has ruled several times that lawmaker immunity is not a benefit, but a guarantee of their work and protection from avenging authorities. “The scope of the immunity can be changed,” says Viktor Musiyaka, co-author of Ukraine’s Constitution. “But cancelling it all is unacceptable.”
It’s important to guarantee the independence of the lawmakers when they take decisions in parliament, he says.
Grievous crimes and crimes against the state should not be covered by immunity, while the lawmakers should be free from prosecution for the results of voting and the views they express, says political analyst Taras Berezovets, who heads the Berta Communications consultancy. He assumes that the parliament will pass the current version of the law. “This draft law is reputational for the authorities,” he says. “It’s the reputation of Poroshenko and Groysman, who initiated the law. That’s why Poroshenko, having the largest faction in parliament, will have to push it through.”
But the bill will be blocked by the Constitutional Court, Berezovets speculates, which will rule that it’s unconstitutional. Moreover, the procedures for revising the bill through the court could last from half-a-year to a year-and-a-half, he says.
“This is the game of the lawmakers,” Berezovets says. “They don’t want to cancel their immunity. They will formally support it, but in fact will be doing everything to delay this process. At the end of the day, I hope they will get to the normal European practice and will reduce the degree of immunity, but not cancel it completely.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected].
