Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Moroz tried to pressure the Constitutional Court into issuing rulings favorable to the legislature, the court's chief justice charged last week. Constitutional Court Chairman Ivan Tymchenko told a Dec. 29 press conference that Moroz called him with an offer to quash a probe into the propriety of some Constitutional Court appointments in exchange for favorable rulings on two cases before the court. Tymchenko described the alleged offer, and a subsequent attempt by a parliamentary agency to probe the court's spending, as 'blackmail.' Moroz could not be reached for comment on the allegations. His spokesman, Vasyl Ivanyna, dismissed them as one more volley fired in a longstanding feud between the Constitutional Court and the legislative leader. Moroz 'has said repeatedly that, unfortunately, our court is biased. Apparently, that provoked Tymchenko's accusations,' Ivanyna said.
Tymchenko said Moroz did not name the cases during the Nov. 17 telephone conversation. 'You pass correct decisions on our two cases, and we will not let the Karmazin case proceed,' the justice quoted the speaker as saying. Parliament Deputy Yury Karmazin had asked Moroz to order an investigation into the procedure used to appoint the six Constitutional Court justices nominated by President Leonid Kuchma. Karamazin has claimed that the presidential decree appointing the six lacked the required signatures of the prime minister and justice minister. The government has denied Karmazin's allegation.
Tymchenko suggested that Moroz was likely trying to pre-empt a legal challenge by Kuchma to the powers of the Accounting Chamber, an audit agency subordinated to Parliament. On Dec. 25, the court issued a ruling that severely circumscribed the Accounting Chamber's authority and upheld its autonomy from Parliament.
Tymchenko also said Parliament tried to use the Accounting Chamber itself to investigate spending by the Constitutional Court.
'We had to tell them that the Accounting Chamber does not have a right to check violations of law, that law enforcement agencies do that,' said Tymchenko. He said that law establishing the Accounting Chamber did not give it the authority to investigate Parliament and the courts. The Accounting Chamber was trying to probe allegations that the high court bought 12 Opel and two Mazda cars with money from an unknown source. Tymchenko said the court in fact bought 10 Opels, one Mazda, and one BMW for his own use this year using funds appropriated by Parliament. The chief justice defended the purchases as modest in comparison to those made by Parliament and the government. In response to a reporter's question, Tymchenko said he could think only of one instance of pressure on the court from the president. He said Kuchma once asked him at a reception why the court had only issued five rulings more than a year after it was established.
The number of rulings has since risen to eight, of which two were based on petitions by the president and four were requested by members of Parliament.
