Quotable notes

"I am against abolishing lawmakers' immunity since [that move] will be used to pressure deputies. Businessmen in the Parliament have yielded to the president's resolution to abolish immunity, because they are expecting the legalization of shadow capital. If all incomes of shadow economy businessmen are legalized, they will of course ensure immunity for themselves for cash. But opposition deputies need immunity as a guarantee of work that is independent from the [executive] authorities."

- Ukraine's Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz as quoted in the April 7 issue of Kievskie Viedomosti, and reported by RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report.

* * *

"Lawmakers' immunity is no good at all. I tell my wife at home - I have parliamentary immunity, so please handle me with care! But she takes my salary from me all the same, so it is impossible even to squirrel anything away. The full-fledged immunity of a deputy may be enjoyed only in a grave! But I fear that there are problems with immunity even in the other world: just look at Grandfather Lenin."

- Ukraine's Green Party leader Vitalii Kononov as quoted in the April 7 issue of Kievskie Viedomosti and reported by RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 16, 2000, No. 16, Vol. LXVIII

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