February 03-05, 2016

Following PGA’s Parliamentary Seminar on the International Criminal Court (ICC) of mid-December 2015, and in light of the Parliament of Ukraine (“Verkhovna Rada”)’s vote on the proposed constitutional amendments to allow for ICC ratification by amending Article 124 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the PGA Secretary-General was invited by the Kingdom of the Netherlands Ambassadors to the ICC and to Ukraine to meet in Kyiv with the Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Presidential Administration to discuss the constitutional amendments package on judiciary necessary for Rome Statute ratification, which had been sent to Parliament on 22 January 2016.

The visit fell during a pivotal moment in the Verkhovna Rada with respect to Ukraine’s ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC. Just before the delegation arrived in Kyiv, the Rada approved in first reading the constitutional amendments package on the judiciary, which includes the amendment of Article 124 of the Constitution on judicial sovereignty. Regretfully, the package includes a transitional provision that is designed to delay Rome Statute ratification by at least 3 years after the package’s final approval in third reading.

To address the issue of this 3-years transitional provision with PGA Members in the Rada and a wider group of MPs from all fractions, the Permanent Representative of The Netherlands to the ICC and the PGA Secretary General met with some of the MPs who participated in the PGA Seminar in December 2015 including Mr. Serhiy Alekseev, MP, Mr. Oleksii Ryabchyn, MP, and Ms. Oksana Yurynets, MP, in addition to PGA Members Mr. Vitaliy Kupriy, MP, Ms. Iryna Lutsenko, MP, Ms. Alona Shkrym, MP, Ms. Olena Sotnyk, MP, Mr. Borys Tarasiuk, MP and Ms. Svitlana Zalishuk, MP. The meeting provided a fruitful opportunity for the PGA Delegation to discuss with MPs the way forward in light of the recent Verkhovna Rada vote on Article 124 in order to allow for Rome Statute ratification as early as possible, namely before the passing of another 3 years. The PGA Members decided on relevant action in fulfillment of Art. 8 of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which provides with an obligation to ratify by Ukraine.

There are 3 possible scenarios towards ratification at this point are as follow:

1. The package of Constitutional Reform would be voted as it is and adopted in second and third reading. This could already happen before the next Parliamentary session that starts in September 2016. At the same time, PGA Members would be requesting to President Poroshenko to send a new proposal to change the Constitutional Law containing the Transitional Provisions with the view of eliminating it one year after the date of adoption. This is due to the fact that amendments to a Constitutional Law may only be revised after the passing of one year since its entry into force.
2. Parliamentarians persuade the President to amend again the constitutional amendments package, which will then have to be sent back to the Constitutional Court for review and after that back to Parliament to be newly approved in its first reading. The law may then go into its second and third reading in the following session of Rada starting in Septempber 2016.  This would be an ideal scenario also to strengthen reforms concerning judicial independence.
3. The MPs could get a list of at least 245 signatures for proposal petition by individual MPs that authorizes the Government to immediately ratify the Rome Statute, and then trigger the Constitutional Court for a revision of its Constitutional opinion of 2001, via the request of at least 45 MPs. If the latter Constitutional Court opinion would be revised, Ukraine could ratify under the current (not revised) Constitution.

The delegation visiting Kyiv to follow up on the achievements of the December 2015 Seminar consisted of the PGA Secretary-General, Dr. David Donat Cattin, and the Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the International Criminal Court (ICC), H.E. Amb. Jan-Lucas van Hoorn. They were both asked to provide an interview to the major news channel Radio Svoboda to shed some lights on the current status of Ukraine’s efforts towards ratification of the Rome Statute versus the current Art.12.3 ad hoc Declaration. Please find here the link towards the interview in Ukrainian.  The Delegation also released a TV interview that had significant media impact, as reported by Ukraine Today:.

For more information on PGA’s work in Kyiv please contact the PGA ILHR Program’s Senior Program Officer Ms. Leyla Nikjou at