25 June 2010, 17:16
Volodymyr Lytvyn, Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, stresses that the Parliament shall finally ratify the Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine on the Period of Elections to the Local Authority Bodies and Mayor Offices in September
It would facilitate definiteness in the work of the local self-government bodies and increase their effectiveness, V. Lytvyn declared at the press-conference in Chernihiv on Friday.
Asked by the journalists about the decision of the Constitutional Court on amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (regarding the authority terms of the Verkhovna Rada of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, local councils, village city and town mayors), V. Lytvyn declared that the Constitutional Court recognized the date of the elections unconstitutional, and explained that setting of the elections terms was not a subject of constitutional regulation.
According to the Head of the Parliament, the Court "was supposed to explain that the judgement meant exactly this definition instead of proclaiming the date unconstitutional." V. Lytvyn admitted that although the Constitutional Court recognized the principles that the local deputies and mayors, elected in the result of the early elections are elected in accordance with the usual procedure, it failed to give a distinct response to the following question: who is going to be responsible for the situation that would take place in 5-10 years. "Actually, there would be no need to conduct the elections in the national dimension", the Head of the Parliament added.
V. Lytvyn emphasised that more than one thousand of early elections had already been held in Ukraine. "It is a great problem then who is going to control the elections organization, if they are held in each township, region or district?" he asked.
The Head of the Parliament is against authorizing townships or regions to specify the date of elections. "It would be an infringement upon the Local Self-Government Charter and building of the local self-government bodies vertical. It is nonsense, as the territorial community settles its problems, while the Constitutional Court wants to undermine it", V. Lytvyn emphasised.