Venice Commission: Individuals have the right to constitutional submissions
Gianni Buciccio, Head of the Venice Commission Delegation who visited Ukraine on 22 and 23 September to discuss the draft law on the parliamentary elections, believes that Ukrainian citizens must be given the right to make individual submissions to the Constitutional Court. He told journalists at a press conference in Kyiv that this would improve human rights protection for all Ukrainian citizens, and would help to less the workload at the European Court of Human Rights.
“In general I would like to see better cooperation and interaction between political forces in order to strengthen democratic institutions”.
Journalists were not able to put questions to Mr Buciccio, being told that this was not in the programme for his presence and participation in the international conference “Defence of Human Rights by Constitutional Justice Bodies”. Only TV channel cameramen were allowed into the conference hall. During the address given by the Head of the Venice Commission, the interpreting for journalists was switched off. The organizers of the conference explained this as due to technical problems, though all members of the conference were assured interpreting services.
According to the Constitution, the Constitutional Court can consider submissions from the President, no less than 45 National Deputies; the Human Rights Ombudsperson; the Crimean Parliament; or the Cabinet of Ministers.