Constitutional Court: Deputies can be arrested without parliament’s consent

Ukraine’s Constitutional Court has declared constitutional the draft law on restricting deputy immunity. Judgments made public today also concern the functions of the prosecutor’s office regarding criminal investigations.

The draft law in question “On amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (on restricting deputy immunity)” (No. 1375) proposes excluding from the Constitution the provision stating that Deputies to the Verkhovna Rada  may not be detained, arrested or prosecuted without parliament’s consent.  In accordance with the Constitution, any draft law on constitutional amendments must first be considered by the Constitutional Court.

On Tuesday the Court also reported its judgment that the provision in the Law on the Prosecutor’s Office regarding the force of Item 9 of the Transitional Provisions is constitutional. Item 9 states that the Prosecutor’s Office “continues to exercise, in accordance with the laws in force, the function of supervision over the observance and application of laws and the function of preliminary investigation, until the laws regulating the activity of state bodies in regard to the control over the observance of laws are put into force, and until the system of pre-trial investigation is formed and the laws regulating its operation are put into effect”

The Constitutional Court also terminated consideration of a number of other submissions regarding the constitutionality of provisions of the Law on the Prosecutor’s Office, including those regarding the fundtion of prosecutor’s surveillance over adherence to the law in Ukraine. It stated that the authors of the submission had not provided arguments to back their position.

Based on information at korrespondent.net