Sunday, July 21, 2013

New Constitutional Court head will entrench Yanukovych in power after 2015

Several days ago Vyacheslav Ovcharenko was elected as a chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

Ovcharenko is a 100% Yanukovych loyalist promoted to provide a 'belt and braces' guarantee Yanukovych remains president after 2015, whatever the results of elections to be held in that year.

This is what Liga.net have to say about this man:

Vyacheslav Ovcharenko worked as a mechanic and was involved in a scandal surrounding the disappearance of criminal case file against Yanukovych 

The 56-year-old Ovcharenko was born in Yenakievo, which is also Yanukovych's home town. From 1983 to 1984 he worked as a legal advisor at the Yenakievo auto repair department of the "Ordzhonikidzeugol" plant. Then head of the plant auto transport depot at that time was Viktor Yanukovych.

Ovcharenko was appointed head of the Yenakievo city court in December 2002 - a month after Yanukovych was appointed prime minister for the first time.

In 2006 he was promoted to the Constitutional Court in Kyiv when Yanukovych headed the new parliamentary coalition [PoR-Communists-Socialists]. After this Yanukovych became PM for a second time.

Following the Orange Revolution there were strong suspicions that in December 2002, during the first premiership of Viktor Yanukovych, Ovcharenko had been involved in the disappearance of documents confirming the criminal convictions of the current president in 1967 and 1969. Yanukovych spent three and a half years in prison for crimes of violence as a result of these convictions. Ovcharenko had claimed the court premises were 'poorly guarded' in the late '80's.

As a high-ranking judge his salary would currently be rather less than $50K p.a. Despite this his has somehow managed to become a very wealthy man. According to his official declarations he owns two homes, a large plot of land, three nearly new automobiles, seven expensive motorcycles including a fancy Harley Davidson, and a tractor.

In February 2013 a photographer snapped photos of Ovcharenko wearing a $27K Breguet Marine Chronograph wristwatch.

According to 'Ukrainska Pravda': Ovcharenko's primary function will be to manage the Constitutional Court in the turbulent months before and after the presidential election. Bearing in mind in 2010 the Constitutional Court gave back Viktor Yanukovych much greater powers than those held by his predecessor Viktor Yushchenko, nothing will stop it legitimising any other whims of Yanukovych. These could include election of the president by the parliament; or election of the president in just one round [as opposed to the current two round system]. Or the setting up of  a bicameral parliament and depriving deputies of the immunity which they now possess. Or the setting up an entirely new Constitution.

Another important point - the President of the Constitutional Court is responsible for conducting the swearing in of a newly elected president. In other words, in case of defeat for Yanukovych in 2015 Ovcharenko could block the inauguration of any other possible winner on a technicality.

[Click to enlarge]

5 comments:

Rupert Neil Bumfrey said...

https://plus.google.com/100146646232137568790/posts/gDps6tuYrQe I posted here, but not too many interested in Ukraine!

Anonymous said...

Why image with sheme was removed from article?!

Anonymous said...

WHY the hell image was removed from article?!!

LEvko said...

Thanks for the comments. I image with Russian text, should be accessible from this link:

http://liga.net/upload/iblock/01b/01b1bb15de6eacb712dfff75410208ee.jpg

Ovcharenko's appointment means Yanukovych has yet another 'base now covered' for 2015. A few weeks ago he got his man to head the Central Election Commission. There was only one name on the list of candidates....[more here: http://www.odessatalk.com/2013/07/holding-the-cec-accountable-ukraine/ ]

Ukrtoday said...

I see nothing wrong with the appointment of the president by a 2 thirds constitutional majority of the parliament. In fact such a move would be more democratic then a wasteful less representative two round voting system. Many other states in Europe have such a system. Estonia Latvia, Hungary, Finland for example.

Ukraine should have adopted such a system under Yushchenko as was agreed to in the settlement of the Orange revolution.

Ideally the president's power would also be reduced and Ukraine would shift from a presidential system of government to a full parliamentary model.


In 2007 Yushchenko illegally and unconstitutionally dismissed Ukraine's parliament going so far as to interfering with the composition and operation of Ukraine's Constitutional court in order to prevent the Court from rightfully declaring his actions invalid. This caused seven months of political and social unrest and resulted in further political destabelision of Ukraine. This paved the way for the events in 2010 that followed, reversing the democratic reforms introduced in December 2004. Yushchenko's actions back in 2006-7 and again in 2009 setback Ukraine's democratic development decades if not generations.

This is not to excuse the policies and and actions of Yanukovych who in 2010 acted to restore and consolidate presidential authority. Had it not been for Yushchenko I seriously doubt that Yanukovych would have been elected president.

Sadly Ukraine has been inflicted by a number of wrong choices in electing it's head of state.

As long as Ukraine retains presidential authority it will never be a democratic state,

The sooner Ukraine abandons presidential rule and develops a string workable parliamentary system the better off Ukraine will be.