UKRAINIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT REFUSES TO CONSIDER LEGALITY OF RADA'S RESOLUTION SUPPORTING TOMOS ON AUTOCEPHALY
Interfax-Religiia, 13 March 2019
The Ukrainian Constitutional Court does not want to assess the legality of the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada in support of the appeal by the president of the country to the patriarch of Constantinople requesting autocephaly.
Earlier 47 people's deputies of Ukraine sent to the Constitutional Court a request to rule the Rada's resolution in support of the tomos, in which, in their opinion, the principle of the separation of state and church was violated, to be in contradiction with the constitution.
Meanwhile the Constitutional Court considered that the questions raised in the parliament's resolution "bear a political character and should be decided within the framework of the competence and political expediency of the pertinent bodies of state power."
In the view of the judges of the Constitutional Court, parliament "may make decisions of a political nature for expressing its own position and evaluation of one or another event, fact, and circumstances."
"In adopting the resolution, the Verkhovna Rada expressed a political position regarding the support of the appeal of the Ukrainian president to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for granting a tomos concerning autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine," the court's order says.
Thus it follows from the verdict of the Constitutional Court, the issues raised in the Rada's resolution "cannot be the object of consideration by the Constitutional Court inasmuch as they have a political and not a legal character."
Proceeding from this, the Ukrainian Constitutional Court refused to open proceedings on the case. (tr. by PDS, posted 13 March 2019)
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