Parliament passes law bypassing Constitution on creating coalitions

The Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday 9 March passed a Law on amendments to Article 61 of the Regulations of the Verkhovna Rada. 235 National Deputies out of 417 registered voted for the amendments.

According to this new law, a coalition of deputy factions is made up of deputy factions and national deputies forming a majority of the national deputies in the Verkhovna Rada.  There are more words in the law and in the explanation to it, but this is the fundamental difference, that individual Deputies can make the difference as to whether or not a coalition is formed.

This would appear to contravene Article 83 of the Constitution which speaks only of a “majority of deputy factions”. 

According to the new law, a list of National Deputies who have formed the coalition is added to the coalition agreement, with their signatures, as well as a list of the crucial elements of the coalition agreement.

As reported already, the law was passed as a base just a few days ago, on 4 March. The Head of the Board of the Centre for Political and Legal Reform, Ihor Koliushko said at the time that he did not see how it could be reconciled with Article 83 of the Constitution. Oleksiy Haran, Academic Director of the NaUKMA School of Political Analysis believed that the formation of a new coalition by unconstitutional means would immediately place its legitimacy in question, and that BYuT would have every chance of successfully challenging them in the Constitutional Court or administrative courts.