Written declaration No. 539 | Doc. 13179 | 22 April 2013

Direct election by citizens cannot be overturned by the authorities

Signatories: Mr Pieter OMTZIGT, Netherlands, EPP/CD ; Mr Pedro AGRAMUNT, Spain, EPP/CD ; Mr Volodymyr ARIEV, Ukraine, EPP/CD ; Mr José María BENEYTO, Spain, EPP/CD ; Ms Tinatin BOKUCHAVA, Georgia, EPP/CD ; Ms Deirdre CLUNE, Ireland, EPP/CD ; Mr Michael CONNARTY, United Kingdom, SOC ; Mr David DAVIES, United Kingdom, EDG ; Ms Iryna GERASHCHENKO, Ukraine, NR ; Mr Valeriu GHILETCHI, Republic of Moldova, EPP/CD ; Mr Andrzej HALICKI, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Giorgi KANDELAKI, Georgia, EPP/CD ; Mr Jan KAŹMIERCZAK, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr László KOSZORÚS, Hungary, EPP/CD ; Mr Péter MIHALOVICS, Hungary, EPP/CD ; Mr József NAGY, Slovak Republic, EPP/CD ; Ms Mirosława NYKIEL, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Joseph O'REILLY, Ireland, EPP/CD ; Ms Lesia OROBETS, Ukraine, EPP/CD ; Ms Elżbieta RADZISZEWSKA, Poland, EPP/CD ; Ms Jadwiga ROTNICKA, Poland, EPP/CD ; Mr Oleksandr SHEVCHENKO, Ukraine, NR ; Mr Serhiy SOBOLEV, Ukraine, EPP/CD ; Mr Latchezar TOSHEV, Bulgaria, EPP/CD ; Mr Egidijus VAREIKIS, Lithuania, EPP/CD ; Mr Luca VOLONTÈ, Italy, EPP/CD ; Mr Piotr WACH, Poland, EPP/CD

This written declaration commits only those who have signed it.

Every Council of Europe member State accepts that its own citizens’ will is the only source of power. Each country’s parliament is directly elected by citizens. Thus the members elected are direct representatives of the people, whose will is the only source of power.

Recent events in Ukraine call into question Ukraine’s compliance with this basic principle. In this context there have been two different decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine which arbitrarily deprived of the parliamentary seats to which they had been elected on the basis of majority voting Oleksandr Dombrovskyy, Pavlo Baloha and Serhiy Vlasenko, elected on the basis of the lists of the Batkivshchyna party, currently in opposition. At the same time, the court decisions regarding Dombrovskyy and Baloha have not been fully implemented. Vlasenko has been deprived of his mandate, and the Central Elections Committee has put in his place a new member of parliament from the Batkivshchyna party list.

We express our extreme concern about these processes in Ukraine, which conflict with the basic principles of democracy.

We urge the Ukrainian authorities to desist from their direct violations of the rules accepted by Ukraine when it joined the Council of Europe.