EU will not start negotiations on Ukraine's accession without Constitutional Court reform - Lawyer Zhernakov

This was stated by lawyer and chairman of the board of the DEJURE Foundation Mykhailo Zhernakov on Espreso TV. 

"The Constitutional Court is the only institution that can balance unconstitutional decisions of the parliament. We have no other body where these decisions can be reviewed. The constitution and human rights must be protected from the fact that there is a political situation when some force in the parliament gets a majority. We are balancing now and we have no openly unconstitutional decisions, but it is quite thin ice," he said.

According to Zhernakov, concentration of power is inevitable during the war and post-war period and it has certain risks.

"The EU, having learned from the experience of Poland and Hungary, simply will not let us in without an independent Constitutional Court and an independent judiciary. Now even no one will open accession negotiations for us. Especially after the EU communication - they clearly say that there should be a seventh member in the selection commission under the quota of internationals and the decisions of the commission should be binding. After that, no one will say that they changed their mind and open accession negotiations. Judicial reform is one of the seven requirements for these negotiations. If we do not make a normal reform of the Constitutional Court, the process of joining the EU will not begin," the lawyer concluded.