No Immunity!

KIEV, Ukraine -- It should go without saying that in a decent society, no one should be above the law. Ukraine has made progress in becoming that sort of society, but every once in a while it offers up an incident that reminds us that, after all, the Soviet era with its savage injustices wasn’t so long ago.


Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko is going to resign if the law, signed by president Yushchenko, restoring criminal and administrative immunity for local councils’ deputies comes into effect
Take the business this week concerning parliament’s granting of blanket immunity from prosecution to members of Ukraine’s regional and city legislatures. The Rada in its collective wisdom apparently wanted to make sure that provincial lawmakers should be able to break the law in this country, and get away with it.

It’s as crudely simple as that. As the bill envisions it, the guy who sits on the regional council in, say, Dnipropetrovsk or Lviv will now be able to steal, cheat, and even murder in complete freedom from the threat of prosecution, for as long as he occupies office. Yes, his fellow deputies could vote to lift his immunity, but it will be a cold day in hell before they vote against their own interests like that. Shamefully, President Viktor Yushchenko signed the bill late on Oct. 5.

Rumor has it that this reprehensible bill is the Yushchenko team’s sop to Viktor Yanukovych and his Regions of Ukraine party, who favor an extension of immunity. Yanukovych, of course, was Yushchenko’s partner in getting Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov approved by the Rada recently, and now Yanukovych is said to be calling in the markers on behalf of his cronies in the provinces.

It’s bad enough that Rada deputies themselves are immune from prosecution. It creates a culture of cynicism, in which a mandarin caste of unaccountable rulers lords it over an inferior populace. It also turns the Rada into more of a sewer of corruption than it has to be, since some members acquire seats only to avoid going to jail. Immunity actually offers crooks an incentive to join parliament. Now the Ukrainian people are supposed to accept it as this system is expanded to the local level?

We’re aware of the arguments in favor of immunity. Chief among them is that, without it, nothing would get done, as the country’s political forces would do little else but try to destroy each other with politically-motivated prosecutions. There’s some superficial sense to that argument, since Ukraine still lacks the strong civil culture that prevents such abuses in countries that don’t offer their ruling classes immunity. But even if you grant that Rada immunity is a good idea – which we’re not inclined to – there’s still no reason to extend the privileges to every old boy on every council in the Ukrainian hinterlands.

It’s an interesting counterpoint to this business that in the United States right now, powerful Republican congressman Tom Delay is being indicted on money-laundering charges that could put him in jail. The U.S. need not be an example to Ukraine in all things, but this country should learn from that older democracy in this instance: even an old ally of President George W. Bush isn’t above the due process of the law.

This is a bad bill, and Yushchenko deserves censure for signing it. It will leave even more of a bad taste in our mouths if it turns out that his support for it represented a quid pro quo for political favors received from Viktor Yanukovych. The whole affair is depressing, and nothing less than an outrage.

Source: Kyiv Post Editorial