Parliament simplifies procedure for granting consent to bring MPs to criminal liability
(Updated)
The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's parliament, has supported amendments to the parliament's rules of procedure simplifying the procedure for granting consent to bring to justice, detain or arrest MPs who have committed a crime.
A total of 235 MPs voted for a law authored by Party of Regions MP Volodymyr Oliynyk on Thursday.
The law foresees the optimization of the terms for the consideration of these issues in parliament (earlier the procedures for granting the consent of parliament to bring MPs to justice took at least 32 days).
In addition, cases related to the criminal prosecution, detention or arrest of MPs are considered directly at a plenary parliament meeting with the participation of MPs without prior consideration of these issues by the concerned committee (earlier the legislation gave the committee 20 days to consider written explanations from deputies).
According to the law, a lawmaker has the right to have a person who will represent his interests.
"A people's deputy of Ukraine is also fully entitled to a defense in the manner prescribed by the Criminal Procedure Code and other laws of Ukraine," reads the explanatory note to the law.
According to Article 80 of the Constitution of Ukraine, Ukrainian MPs cannot be prosecuted, detained or arrested without the consent of the Verkhovna Rada.
The powers of a people's deputy of Ukraine are terminated early if a guilty verdict against him comes into force (Article 81 of the constitution). The decision to terminate the deputy's powers is made by a majority of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada.
According to the official interpretation of the Constitutional Court of June 26, 2003, No. 12-rp/2003, the detention of an MP as a temporary measure, criminal-procedural or administrative-procedural measure can be applied to a people's deputy of Ukraine only with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the grounds and in the order established by the constitution and laws of Ukraine.
The second part of Article 27 of the law on the status of people's deputies says that it should be understood that "the detention or arrest of a people's deputy of Ukraine is possible with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine regardless of its consent to bring this people's deputy to criminal liability."
