In front of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court, Kiev, April 18, 2007
Photo: Dmitry Azarov
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Judge Not, That Ye Be Not Judged
Spring and revolution were in the air yesterday in Ukraine. Orange MPs in front of the Constitutional Court blockaded the constitutional judges, and were set upon by Berkut special forces with clubs. Fights broke out by the presidential secretariat between Orange supporters and Blue-and-White supporters. Yulia Timoshenko and Vyacheslav Kirilenko recalled their deputies from the Supreme Rada and announced the date of a public meeting where the Orange would show its true might. Kommersant special correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov is now in the middle of it all.
I was amazed yesterday morning to see that a sea of orange had sprung up in front of the Constitutional Court. A day earlier, there had been just a couple dozen orange flags poking through the blue and white.
And then it all changed. The orange flags of Our Ukraine, People's Self-Defense and the Yulia Timoshenko Bloc squeezed out the blue and white flags around the court fence, and all traces of the previous day's friendliness were gone.
I understood that everything had suddenly gotten very serious when I saw that the court really was blockaded. The central entrance, which I had passed through the day before, was blocked by the Blue-and-Whites and, I discovered when I squeezed past them, locked. The service entrance was blocked by Timoshenko supporters who cheerfully informed me that “everything's taped shut.”
There is one more entrance, for the judges' cars. The special forces were blocking it. They stood forming corridor, with orange flags behind them on one side, and blue and white flags behind the other side. The corridor led to the gates, which were guarded by three rows of troops.
I was sure that the press would be admitted to the court session, but found out otherwise soon enough. There were soon another seven or eight frustrated reporters with me. After calling for about ten minutes, we were able to get through to the court press service by telephone. (The court's phone system was not working yesterday evening or today morning.) The press service told us that there would be no press in the court today.
“The session itself is in doubt,” the press service lady said in a nervous voice before hanging up on us.
Then we started shouting, and were heard by someone inside.
“Well,” he said, sidling up, “who but Miroshnichenko can help you?” and he led us past the troops, who followed his orders readily. Miroshnichenko, a Rada members from the Party of the Regions, was there representing 53 MPs who were petitioning the Constitutional Court.
I passed through the little side gate, around which Timoshenko Bloc MPs were standing with the same expression on their faces as the special forces soldiers had. They were in control of movement here, and were not letting anyone through. After difficult negotiations, in the course of which I had to tell them a lot about myself and a few things about them, I got into the Constitutional Court.
I had just entered the balcony of the courtroom when I heard “All rise. Court is in session.”
The judges entered, led by court chairman Judge Ivan Dombrovksy. There were six judges present, and 12 more empty places.
There are only six judges present,” Dombrovsky confirmed, “in connection with the blockade of the court. And there are no representatives of the opposing sides!” His voice rose to a shout and suddenly we realized that he was nervous too.
“No representatives? I'm here!” Supreme Rada representative Yaroslav Mendus called from the gallery.
“I cannot continue the session under these circumstances,” Dombrovsky went on, ignoring Mendus. “I had a talk with the interior minister. He promised me help. The judges are standing in front of the gates and they won't let them in.”
Someone asked from the balcony when the session will be held.
“Just as soon as there is a quorum,” the judge replied with an edgy voice. “That's all. We're leaving.”
On the lower level, the dissatisfied grumblings of a few MPs who got through could be heard. They were mainly Communists and members of the Party of the Regions.
“This goon three times my size was standing there,” cult MP from the Crimea Leonid Grach complained to me. He is well over average size himself. “And he says that I can't go in. All right, the [Timoshenko Bloc leader Alexander] Turchinov approaches from behind and gives the command to let me through. It's criminal! Now the members of the court who haven't made up their minds about the presidential order can do that! There has never been anything like this in the history of the court! In the history of Ukraine! Everything else has happened, but not this. Threatening the Constitutional Court! Keeping judges out! The Orange have lost their minds!”
MP Ivan Vernidubov came up. Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead.
“Phew,” he heaved. “I got through. I wouldn't have if Turchinov hadn't let me.”
“They've lost!” Grach exclaimed. “It's a fiasco for them! It's all clear!”
Vladimir Shapoval, presidential representative in the Constitutional Court, was waiting twitchily for the elevator. His briefcase gave him no peace. He shifted it from hand to hand, then to the windowsill and back.
“How did you get in?” I asked.
“How?” he echoed me. “First no one wanted to let me in. There was a cordon of Party of the Regionals four meters thick. I explained to them that, from the party's point of view, it was to their benefit that I participate.” He paused. “You know, a lot of them are in bad condition.”
“Drunk?”
“Well, I didn't check their breath. But they smelled bad.”
“Oh, well, they smell bad even when they're sober.” I couldn't stop myself.
“When I got past them, I came up on a crowd that was barely standing.” He continued to fidget as we spoke. He could have been working out in a gym. “Then I slipped through a snack bar. The drivers told me about that. Thank you, drivers. And then I was in the courtyard. I told the police Salaam aleikum.' I did. And kept on going.”
“They let you?”
“No, they stopped me. I didn't tell them I was the president's representative. I have experience. I said I was a retired judge and I was participating in the court session. And so they let me go. I hurried because my absence could be interpreted at the president being in on the blockade. And that would be… a spontaneous political trial… You know when that occurs?”
“During a revolution?”
He did not answer but set his briefcase back on the windowsill.
He looked at me. “I don't think any of this is normal that's happening in the court and around it. All the mudslinging does not make the political situation any prettier.”
He was referring to Ukrainian security chief Valentin Nalivaichenko, who had just accused Constitutional Court reporter Judge Suzanna Stanik of accepting a bribe of $12-million worth of real estate.
“And why didn't she react?” he continued. “She said, You're a fool.' And that was all. I would have shown them everything I own. Because I have nothing to hide. I'll tell you what. When this is over, I'm going to ask the president to free me from my duties.”
“Seriously?”
“Completely. I'll write my resignation and the president won't be able to reject it.”
Elena Lukash was sitting nearby. She is Minister of the Cabinet of Ministers, participant in the court proceedings and a beautiful woman.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“I jumped the fence.”
I looked closely at her and saw that she really had. The fence is two meters high.
“I saw them – Gubsky, Knyazevich, Turchinov. They're the ones who made me go over the fence,” she said.
“What are you going to do to them” I asked cautiously.
“Strip them of their immunity and drag them into court. On criminal charges! It's over. The elections to the Supreme Rada end today. We all understand it. They were the fastest elections in Ukraine's history.”
“You mean the ones that were supposed to take place on May 27?”
“Yes,” she said. “It was already obvious from the lack of district election commissions and polling stations abroad. No ballots were ordered. Pathological independence…”
“Do you work out?” again I couldn't resist.
“Everyone in politics knows that this is all a workout. Bungee jumping won't give you as much adrenalin as a day in politics.”
“And if the judges do get in?”
“I'm ready.”
I went downstairs and out to the gates where the Timoshenko Bloc MPs were on guard. There were judges hovering around them, giving uncertain commentary to the press and keeping an eye on the MPs. Several Party of the Regions MPs were on hand to watch them as well.
“What do you want?” I asked Turchinov.
“We want all the judges to work,” he said, casting a glance at them as they drew nearer, “but not as part of a corrupt scheme!” Our task is to draw Ukraine's attention to the facts of the corruption.”
He had at least attracted the attention of Ukraine to himself. Judge Stanik, the main schemer herself, so to speak, who had just made her way through the special forces troops, came running up.
“I have an announcement!” she cried out. “The work of the Constitutional Court is being blocked!”
“Where have you been?” asked a nervous voice. “People don't go to work looking like that. Didn't you eat yesterday?”
“We know where the apartment the Regionals gave you is,” a man about 35 with a bullhorn addressed her from the Orange crowd behind her.
Stanik spun around and started off in his direction. It was clear that she would have smacked him hard, if she had gotten to him. But he melted quickly into the crowd.
Tension mounted instantly. Someone in law enforcement decided that the situation was getting out of control, and ordered the Berkut to clear the road for the judges. The “pigs” pushed the Orange into formation using their plastic shields and a little force. The Orange tried to stand their ground. Then the troops took out their clubs. The MPs flew in various directions like balls in the Ukrainian national soccer playoff. The Ukrainian team, incidentally, won the right on that same day to hold the European Championship of 2012 in Kiev.
That match was over within minutes, however. The slightly dented MPs came to their senses after the troops trampled their immunity with the same ease they had done it to the Constitutional Court judges. Right in front of me, a fight broke out between Party of the Regions MP Petr Tsyurko and Timoshenko Bloc MP Bogdan Gubsky.
Gubsky swore nastily at his Orange colleague.
“I'll remember that,” Gubsky replied.
“I've been beaten up by the police for the first time!” MP David Zhvania exclaimed.
“Did they beat you or just drag you away?” someone questioned.
“Thy dragged me openly and beat me in secret,” he replied. “They know how to do it. And that in spite of the fact that the Constitutional Court does not have any right to examine the president's order.”
“The court has been overwhelmed with money and has turned into a bazaar. And why did Berkut act so rudely?!”
Stanik and the rest of the judges reached the courthouse in the meantime. There were only three judges in the courtroom, and the Judge Shushkin joined them.
Miroshnichenko, as one of the authors of the petition, was answering Shapoval's questions. He had finally set his briefcase in a corner. He was torturing his colleague with strange questions.
“If a party that is part of a coalition is banned, what are its Rada members to do?” he asked Miroshnichenko.
“Work,” the Party of the Regions MP replied.
“But the parliament becomes practically illegitimate,” Shapoval said. He did not have the same passion he had when he told me he was going to resign. “The president has to dissolve it. Article 90, which you referred to, does not foresee that. That means that the president's authority to dissolve the parliament is much broader than you interpret it.”
I think Miroshnichenko was inclined to agree. It would be easier to agree than to continue the discussion endlessly.
But after a while I heard Shapoval say, “I'm not money. I can't make everybody happy.”
After a short break, Shapoval gave a long speech before the court in which he presented the president's position. He spoke for about half an hour about what was written in the Constitution. The president is its guarantor, and for him the presidency is a post and not a duty. It follows, therefore, in Shapoval's opinion, that he president is obliged to concern himself with the observation of the rights and freedoms of the citizens when they are violated (as happens when MP jump from one faction to another) and the president has the right under Article 106, part 8, of the Constitution to dissolve the parliament on their behalf.
“Article 90 speaks of the incapacity of parliament,” Shapoval insisted, “and of the situation when the president is obliged to dissolve the incapacitated parliament. And article 106 speaks of his right to influence the work of the parliament, if it is violating the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Ukraine.”
Shapoval was trying desperately to get away from article 90, which describes the technical reasons for which the president could dissolve the parliament.
He talked for a lot longer, until the break and after it, and probably during the break.
At the same time, the big troublemakers – Timoshenko, Yury Lutsenko and Kirilenko – were supposed to hold après conference on the street on front of the Court. But the situation changed again. There were more blue and white flags there than orange. And the Blue-and-Whites had the loudspeakers. No one could hear the Orange. Russian folksongs were playing, and people with religious symbols were standing in front of the microphone set up for the use of Timoshenko. The press conference was rescheduled for the evening and relocated to the offices of Our Ukraine.
Now Our Ukraine leader Kirilenko informed journalists that an interparty Our Ukraine and Yulia Timoshenko Bloc congress would be held the next day to decide on recalling their members from the parliament.
About the same time, Kommersant came into possession of a document for the internal use of Our Ukraine signed by Kirilenko. It described the actions of the Orange in the coming days. They intended to nullify the authority of the MPs, that is, clear out their party's election list, as it was confirmed for the 206 elections, so that no one could fill the empty quota, as demanded by law. The opposition intended thus to block the Rada's functioning and deprive it of its two-thirds majority. In the Orange plan, the president would be able to use article 90 of the Constitution to dissolve the parliament again, if the Constitutional Court ruled that the president's order was unconstitutional, and to do so constitutionally.
The opposition wants to take a risk. It seems Timoshenko cannot contain herself ant longer. She has sunk into her familiar elements and is enjoying the revolutionary fight.
“I would like to say,” she said, “that corrupt people approached the walls of the Constitutional Court this morning and took on themselves the robes of judges. That was a farce. Not justice! Therefore, our deputies also came to the court to stop the illegal coven. I propose that we meet on Friday, on our Maidan, on European Square!”
“Ukraine and the Maidan are not for sale!” added Lutsenko.
I asked Kirilenko after the press conference if he really thinks withdrawing the MPs will permit the president to dissolve the parliament again.
“That's up to the president,” he replied.
In other words, he hopes so.
Andrey Kolesnikov, Kiev
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 19, 2007
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