Thursday, January 20, 2005

The ruling

The Supreme Court today rejected Yanukovych's final appeal after listening to arguments until 3 a.m. this morning. This was expected because of the Court's order to publish the results of the election a couple of days ago.

Members of the Supreme are purported to have been infuriated at the arguments made by Yanukovych's attorneys. Apparently, the arguments were more heat and heated than logical or legal. And it couldn't have helped that they brought in some Swiss attorneys to make a part of their case either. Because of the fact that they didn't speak Russian or Ukrainian, any argument from them couldn't have come over any better than a lecture.

At one point, one of Yanukovychs' lawyers called a court ruling stupid or something along those lines. When the Chief Justice told him he could not say that, the lawyer said that the court didn't understand him and that he didn't mean anything by it.

In court of course, it is not what you meant that is the issue, but what the judges understand. I can't beleive it to be helpful to your clients case to have a judge beleive that you called a ruling of his stupid or idiotic or something like that. They might have gotten away with that sort of thing when rulings could be bought or judges could be intimidated. But things have changed, at least for this court and for a lot of other things. The lawyers for Yanukovych haven't realized it yet or at least the extent of it. I guess having been able to exercise all that power for so long has made the world look different for them. But their little world has changed whether they see it or not.

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