KIEV, February 06. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukrainian parliamentarians have not upheld the first attempt to create a special parliamentary commission to prepare a law on making amendments to the Constitution.
An initiative to this effect has been put forth by Verkhovna Rada speaker Vladimir Rybak.
“To date, there is no draft law related to the constitutional reform. No draft law has been registered,” Rybak said.
However, he said many people expected the parliament to deal with this issue. “We can’t fail that is why I call for discussing a problem for creating an ad hoc parliamentary commission, which will deal with this issue,” the Ukrainian parliament speaker added.
The initiative has been supported by 180 deputies with required 226. Now parliamentarians are starting debates on the speaker’s initiative.
Another attempt to hold session
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, or national parliament, on Thursday made another attempt to solve at least the most general organizations problems of its regular session that began on Tuesday. On Wednesday, February 5, the lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the session’s agenda. Neither did they agree a timetable. However, the main issue that was supposed to be discussed on Thursday and at subsequent sessions is the constitutional reform.
Representatives of opposition parties all urge to change the Constitution. On Wednesday, deputy chairman of the Svoboda (Freedom) party Andrei Mokhnik urged the parliament to launch the constitutional process to “promptly begin comprehensive amendments to the Ukrainian constitution.” Alexander Turchinov of the Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party said that his faction had already drafted amendments to the constitutional court bill and had prepared a “detailed text of constitutional changes.” Leader of the UDAR party, Vitali Klitschko, said that first it was necessary to re-adopt the 2004 Constitution as way out of the current crisis and only after that it would be possible to raise the issue of a new Constitution.
Communist leader Pyotr Simonenko demanded that amendments to the constitution be made in line with the current constitution and called on lawmakers to appoint members of an ad hoc constitutional commission.
In response, Yuri Miroshnichenko of the ruling Party of Regions faction stated that his party is ready to set up a joint task group representing all parliamentary factions to agree on a text that would be put to a vote at the Verkhovna Rada.