Committee chairman admits impeachment was used as threat (09/21/97)

Committee chairman admits impeachment was used as threat

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A Verkhovna Rada committee continues to cautiously prepare for possible impeachment proceedings against President Leonid Kuchma. Meanwhile its chairman has admitted that the committee was using the threat of removal from office as a political tool to force the president to sign a controversial bill on local government administrations that he has vetoed three times.

Volodymyr Stretovych, chairman of the Committee on Legal Policy and Legal and Juridical Reform, said at a September 16 press conference, "If the president signs the bill, then there is no reason to keep moving to impeachment." The conference was called by eight members of the committee, including national deputies from the Communist, Rukh, Reform and Constitutional Center factions.

Political analysts here have said the battle over the bill on local government self-administration, which would remove the president's power to appoint heads of regional and district administrations, is one that the president is determined to win for fear of losing his political power base at the local level.

President Kuchma has vetoed the bill three times. After the first veto, which was overridden by the Verkhovna Rada, the president stated that the bill did not correspond to the Constitution of Ukraine. The second veto was handed down because the president believed that the Verkhovna Rada overrode his veto unconstitutionally. The third time he returned to the allegation that the bill was drawn up with unconstitutional passages included.

Although committee Chairman Stretovych admitted that "this is a political thing, and we are all political animals," he said the initiation of impeachment proceedings is based on the need to protect the Constitution and the rule of law. "We decided to move on this, however, strictly from a legal point of view," said Mr. Stretovych.

The secretary of the committee, Oleksander Lavrynovych, added, "My goal is to live in a Ukraine that abides by the rule of law. I want government officials who are responsible for their actions and who live by the rule of law."

Although only seven of the 12 committee members voted for the proposal to begin the impeachment process, Mr. Lavrynovych had told reporters last week that all members of the committee had expressed agreement over the need to tell the president he is violating the Constitution.

But at the September 16 press conference some committee members showed that there is less unity among them than Mr. Lavrynovych would have people believe. National Deputy Taras Stetskiv, who is a member of the National Democratic Party that supports President Kuchma, moved to distance himself from the impeachment effort.

"I believe the decision of the committee was a political mistake, and I want to make clear that I didn't support it," said Mr. Stetskiv. "I agree that the president acted improperly when he didn't sign the bill after the veto. But that is a matter for the Constitutional Court. I don't think it is sufficient grounds to merit impeachment proceedings."

At the press conference the members also took pains to make it clear that no impeachment proceedings have begun. Committee member Viktor Shyshkin of the Reforms faction explained that the committee has not proposed the impeachment of the president, only an investigation into whether grounds for impeachment exist. Judging by his words, however, Mr. Shyshkin seems to believe that reasons do exist. Several times he underscored that, "Article 94 of the Constitution clearly states that the president is obligated to sign a bill into law after the Verkhovna Rada has overridden his veto."

Because the Constitution is vague on the specific procedure by which the Verkhovna Rada should carry out an impeachment investigation, Chairman Stretovych has asked the Committee on Procedures and Protocol to develop Verkhovna Rada guidelines and to introduce a bill on the Verkhovna Rada floor sometime next week.

President Kuchma, who has shrugged off the threat of impeachment as a purely political ploy by his enemies, has made some effort to find a middle road in the dispute over the thrice- vetoed bill. On September 13 he met with the acting chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Viktor Musiyaka, to discuss ways to resolve differences over wording in the bill, and on September 17 the president addressed a letter to Verkhovna Rada national deputies requesting them to examine his proposals once again and adopt them in new verbiage, according to Interfax-Ukraine. In the letter the president states that he has "insufficient grounds to sign the bill because its separate provisions do not correspond to the Constitution of Ukraine."

A proposal to begin impeachment proceedings must be supported by a simple majority of Verkhovna Rada deputies. An investigative committee of national deputies would then be formed to determine if the president has committed a crime sufficient to warrant impeachment. If two-thirds of the legislature supports the committee's findings, then the Supreme Court of Ukraine and the Constitutional Court review the decision and must uphold the committee's decision. After that, 75 percent of the Verkhovna Rada must vote to remove the president.

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