Kravchuk: Constitutional Assembly to send package of constitutional amendments to Venice Commission in March

First Ukrainian President and Chairman of the Constitutional Assembly Leonid Kravchuk has said that a package of the proposed amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine on justice will be submitted for examination by the Venice Commission this March, the Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine newspaper has reported.

Kravchuk told the newspaper that the amendments propose applying in Ukraine a European model of the independence of courts and making the profession of judges more accessible.

The amendments will concern the law enforcement system, and then the constitutional body will switch to the issue of local government, he said.

"Without this, we won't be able to consider constitutional reform as a whole. During the second half of March, we will have a prepared strategy of constitutional amendments," Kravchuk said, adding that the end of the work is expected in early 2014.

Kravchuk said that the assembly would draft a law introducing amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine. This document, he said, is expected to become a major stumbling block for parliamentary parties. At the same time, the ex-president said, if MPs do not vote for this bill, he will propose to hold a referendum on this issue.

Kravchuk also told the newspaper that a draft of the large national emblem, which will be developed simultaneously with constitutional amendments, would be submitted for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada. He said that the assembly plans to remove historical injustice in which the country was left without an important attribute of statehood.

"In 1996, the communists boycotted the question of symbols, and it was necessary to reach compromises on virtually every point. And in order not to approve the national emblem as a whole, they proposed approving a little one. I want Ukraine to have only one emblem - the large one," he said.