Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has passed a draft law on the procedure of presidential impeachment, with 245 lawmakers supporting the bill.
Earlier in the day, the Rada gave 270 votes in favor of reviewing the bill under the simplified procedure, and 337 votes to support the bill in the first reading.
The draft law was submitted by President Volodymyr Zelensky on Aug. 29. One of Zelensky’s campaign promises was to regularize a due mechanism of impeachment of the head of the state.
A dismissal of the country’s president under certain circumstances is envisaged in a number of articles of Ukraine’s Constitution, but the Rada’s practice contains a number of flaws that render actual presidential impeachment impossible, according to the bill’s explanatory note reads.
“In particular, the status of the special prosecutor and special investigators (is not defined),” the note says. “Not regularized are certain issues regarding their appointment, as well as regarding electing the head, the secretary, and members, of the special provisional investigatory commission.”
The new law is supposed to remedy the legislative defects.
The document particularly states that the country’s president can be dismissed through the impeachment procedure exclusively after having committed “high treason or other felonies.”
To start the impeachment procedure, the parliament can launch the special provisional investigatory commission. To initiate it, the majority of Rada’s lawmakers need to vote for it.
In the following, the parliament is supposed to address the Constitutional Court for validating the commission’s investigation.
As the final step, at least 337 lawmakers — three-fourths of the parliament constitutional composition of 450 members — are required to vote for the impeachment in order to remove the president.
This provision was criticized by the minority parties in parliament, none of which supported the bill. Some lawmakers pointed out that the provision means the president is protected better than the constitution: to amend the constitution, the parliament needs only 300 votes.
After the law was passed, 245 lawmakers, mostly those belonging to 254-seat fraction Servant of the People, also supported rendering the bill not requiring further finalization.
This vote triggered a strong reaction from minority factions, including 27-seat European Solidarity and 43-seat Opposition Platform For Life, claiming the vote to be the abuse of the parliamentary practice.
The factions demanded that the bill be reviewed, amended, and then voted in the second reading during the parliament’s next meeting.
Speaker Dmytro Razumkov, however, overruled the objections.
