KIEV, July 31. /TASS/. The decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on the constitutional amendments was quite predictable, but it was too hasty. In addition to that, it cannot be called independent, since the current Constitutional Court is not devoid of outside influence, Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Policy Analysis and Management Ruslan Bortnik told TASS on Friday.
"The decision was absolutely predictable. First of all, it was made too quickly. This is probably the fastest decision made by the Constitutional Court over the past 20 years, because the Verkhovna Rada voted for these amendments on July 16," Bortnik said, commenting on the court’s decision. He added that "the Constitutional Court had actually considered them for about a week at the very most."
Bortnik noted that the rush was caused by the fact that "there was a task to vote for the constitutional reform in the summer, to find 300 votes [in the parliament] for that." "The president’s approval rating is falling, the socio-economic situation is deteriorating, the parliament will become increasingly uncontrollable as the election day approaches [the local elections are scheduled for October 25]. So, now there is one of the last opportunities to look for these 300 votes and to force these amendments through the parliament," he said.
According to the expert, another reason for the rush is Kiev’s desire "to show that Ukraine is trying to promptly implement the Minsk agreements, but, of course, the constitutional amendments make no mention of this."
Bortnik added that today’s decision of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court was not altogether independent. "One cannot say that the Constitutional Court is an absolutely independent body, which is devoid of outside influence," the political scientist said. He noted that "today many Constitutional Court judges were regularly summoned to Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office for interrogations regarding the previous decisions, including those made during Yanukovych’s tenure as president."