Victor Baloha: “It’s not going to work”

Rumor has it that they took the ballots of the election to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, held on October 28, last year, from the 71th constituency to the capital to cancel Pavlo Baloha’s victory in this constituency. The leader of the United Center Victor Baloha commented on that travesty of justice on his Facebook page.

"In Ukraine today, anything is possible. Even something that does not fit into the framework of law and basic common sense.

Our courts can undo constitutional reform, allow the state to avoid paying benefits, and even try to take away a deputy mandate 4 months after the election.

So, yesterday lawyers of the United Center spent almost all day in the Supreme Administrative Court, which is considering the case of challenging Pavlo Baloha’s victory in the election to the Verkhovna Rada.

It is clear that there are no legal grounds or procedure by which the court may deprive a deputy of a parliamentary mandate. However, replacing the law with political expediency has become the norm in Ukraine.

The attempts to take away the parliamentary mandate from Pavlo began on the election day and still have not ended. Then we managed to defend the election results. But as soon as we came to the Parliament – it became clear that no one was going to dance to anybody’s tune. Therefore, knowing that each mandate is worth its weight in gold, the ruling party decided in unconstitutional manner to replace Pavlo Baloha with a loyal deputy.

So I want to say – it’s not going to work. We have been there more than once, and we realize that even if Ukrainian "judges" invent a legal know-how, the European Court will decide according to the law.

But the question is this – why does the government have to show the world that Ukraine not only has selective justice, but completely lacks the judiciary branch and all decisions are taken in the one and the same room?".