02 July 2012, 13:55
Adam Martyniuk: Presidential Decree determines the status and functions of the Constitutional Assembly as a special auxiliary body authorized to process and submit proposals to amend the Fundamental Law
"It is very good that the public is concerned about the role and place of the Constitutional Assembly in the process of amending the Constitution," claimed the First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Adam Martyniuk in his commentaries to the journalists of the UT-1 TV channel concerning the public controversies as regards the main functions and principles of the Constitutional Assembly.
"The Presidential Decree provides a clear answer that the Constitutional Assembly, which includes, among others, lawyers, academicians and judges of the Constitutional Court, is a special auxiliary body that is supposed to prepare proposals to the Constitution. The President or minimum 150 people?s deputies shall submit the elaborated amendments for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada. After they are approved by the Parliament, these amendments shall be sent to the Constitutional Court to determine whether they do not violate the current Constitution. After the Constitutional Court draws its conclusions, the Verkhovna Rada shall consider the proposed amendments with consideration of conclusions of the Constitutional Court. To be adopted, they would need at least 226 positive votes. After that, during the next session already, these amendments will become operative if they collect at least 300 positive votes," explained A. Martyniuk.
He specified that "What concerns the nation-wide referendum on this problem, chapter 13 of the current Constitution envisages that if there are proposals to amend the first, the third or the thirteenth chapter of the Constitution, they should first be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada and only then be put to a referendum for approval."
Nevertheless, the politician noted that it is complicated to say to what the amendments to the Fundamental Law will pertain. Instead, he implied that it is quite probable that, following the objective necessity, they would be related to the problems of improving local self-government to eliminate dual power at the local level, public election of judges, and regulation of the election system at the constitutional level.
Answering the specifying question as to whether the Parliament will adopt the amendments to the Constitution approved by the Constitutional Assembly, A. Martyniuk said that "as of today, no one can even say exactly to what these amendments will pertain, let alone the fact that these amendments will already be considered by the new composition of the Verkhovna Rada, and no one knows what its political configuration will be until the results are announced."
Nevertheless, the first Vice Speaker informed that during the first meeting of the Constitutional Assembly which took place on June 20 this year "approximately the following terms were named: these suggestions should reach the President at the end of 2013. It is possible that the amendments would be discussed in public and by experts in 2014 and at the end of 2014 at the beginning of 2015 they might be submitted to the Parliament for consideration".