Ukraine constitutional commission to include 59 Ukrainians, 13 foreign experts – Poroshenko

KYIV. March 31 (Interfax) – A constitutional commission being formed in Ukraine will comprise of 72 members, among them 13 experts from international organizations, says President Petro Poroshenko’s decree posted on his website on Tuesday.

Constitutional amendments are expected to strengthen the role of territorial communities and lift parliamentary and judicial immunity, the decree says.

“I am convinced that following local elections and decentralization, the territorial communities’ effectiveness and responsibility will increase,” Poroshenko said.

The commission will be headed by parliamentary speaker Volodymyr Hroysman and include Ukraine’s three former presidents Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko.

Among other members are leaders of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc Yuriy Lutsenko and of the Batkivshchina parliamentary faction Yulia Tymoshenko, Chairman of the Supreme Arbitration Court Bohdan Lvov, Chairman of the Supreme Court Yaroslav Romanyuk, Chairman of the Council of Judges Valentyna Symonenko, Supreme Court Judge Oleksandr Volkov and Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko, alongside lawmakers and university rectors and lecturers.

The decree supports international organizations’ proposal to involve 13 of their experts and monitors in the constitutional commission’s work.

The constitutional commission may include, if their consent is secured, chairman of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine Armen Arutyunyan, chief of the judiciary administering advisory unit of the EU advisory mission for civil security reform Robert Boer and representative of the European Union’s project to support Ukrainian judiciary reform Virgilius Valancius, as well as Iryna Ulasiuk, a legal advisor to the director of the OSCE’s Office for National Minorities; Oleksandr Vodyankov, national legal advisor and head of the rule of law department of the OSCE project coordinator in Ukraine, Alain Delcamp, an expert of the Congress of Regional and Local Authorities of the Council of Europe; the Council of Europe’s special advisor for Ukraine Christos Giakoumopoulos, member of the Venice Commission Anna Sukholutsk