Divesting the Ukrainian President of power by parliament in 2014 (constitutional analysis)

The article brings up issues of the removing V. Janukovych from power by Ukrainian parliament in February 2014. For that reason resolutions from that period passed by Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (concerning divesting V. Janukovych of president’s power) were discussed, particularly Resolution on February 22nd, 2014 on Self-Removal of the president of Ukraine from his Constitutional Authority and Early Elections of the president of Ukraine. Thorough analysis of Ukrainian parliament’s resolutions mentioned above in the light of legally binding Ukrainian Constitution at that time, judicial decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and literature, leads to conclusion, that the divesting V. Janukovych of power by Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine occurred with violation of the Fundamental Law of Ukraine, first of all, principles of: people’s sovereignty, state power division, rule of law and supremacy of Constitution, legality of acting of bodies of state power, ban of state power usurpation, too. This analysis proves an assumption made in the article that Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine divested the Ukrainian president of power unlawfully.

Early termination of the pairlamentary term as an instrument for seeking an effective parliamentary majority. Comments in the light of the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine

The article discusses the function of early termination of the Parliamentary term consisting of searching for the most effective Parliamentary majority. It was presented in the light of regulations adopted in constitutional law of Ukraine. A mark of lack of positive majority is usually the inability of the Parliament to create the new government. The Constitution of Ukraine provides one more criterion. There was introduced, characteristic only for this state, the institution of legal forcing to create the institutionalized coalition of fractions of deputies covering most of the constitutional composition of the Parliament, under threat of dissolving it by President. The author analyses the effectiveness of this solution in the systemic practice of Ukraine.

Constitutional responsibility of the President of Ukraine

This article presents issues pertaining to the constitutional responsibility acknowledged by the president of Ukraine. Under the Ukrainian law, the scope of responsibilities taken over by the president of Ukraine translates into his legal and system-related position. According to the Constitution of 26 June 1996, the duties and responsibilities may be attributed ex officio, under the procedure of impeachment. The aim of this article is also to present differences between the representatives of legal doctrines in terms of acknowledging the constitutional responsibility by the president of Ukraine. The article also specifies each stage of the procedure aimed at dismissing the president, provides a list of bodies authorised to commence and conduct the proceedings and making the final decision on the dismissal. Furthermore, the article also provides analysis of legal effects being exerted when the head of state was unconstitutionally dismissed by Viktor Yanukovych. The result of the analysis of legal acts was the formulation of de lege ferenda conclusions referring to/concerning the spectrum of entities authorized to initiate and conducting the impeachment procedure.

The purpose of this article is to determine the political conditions of the amendments introduced to the Constitution of Ukraine regarding the modification of the form of rule: 1) to establish the motives of political subjects that aimed at introducing amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution; 2) to grasp the specific political situation in which the modification of the form of rule in Ukraine took place. The following thesis has been examined: 1) that it were the presidents Leonid Kuchma (1994-2005) and Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2014) who had particular aspirations to modify the semi-presidential form of rule introduced in 1996 in Ukraine; 2) that introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine regarding the modification of the form of rule was the result of a political compromise made between the government and the opposition during the socio-political protest in 2004 (the so-called Orange Revolution) and the mass anti-government protest in 2014 (Euromaidan).