By RIA Novosti,
Kiev : The Ukrainian government has launched a criminal case against a judge who ruled to suspend the presidential decree dissolving parliament and calling early parliamentary elections, according to the Unian news agency.
“The criminal case against the judge has been opened on the charge of his knowingly passing an unlawful ruling,” Unian Sunday quoted Kiev Prosecutor Yevheniy Blazhyvsky as saying.
The Kiev district court Saturday suspended the presidential decree for early parliamentary vote.
The ruling was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the bloc of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko against President Victor Yushchenko and the Central Election Commission (CEC).
The country’s pro-Western ruling coalition collapsed on Sep 3 when the pro-presidential Our Ukraine withdrew from the alliance after Tymoshenko’s bloc joined hands with the opposition Party of Regions to pass a legislation substantially cutting presidential powers.
Yushchenko called the move a “constitutional coup”.
Under the Ukrainian constitution, the president can dissolve parliament and call early elections if no majority coalition is formed within 30 days.
The coalition was officially dissolved Sep 16 and, according to the Ukrainian law, elections must take place within 60 days of the dissolution of parliament.
Analysts believe that both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko will stand for president in elections due in 2010. The two were allies in the 2004 “Orange Revolution,” but have since drifted apart on a host of issues, including the recent armed conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Yushchenko blamed the recent collapse of the country’s ruling coalition on Tymoshenko, saying that she had put “personal interests over national ones.”
The parliamentary elections will be the third in Ukraine in less than three years.