Forty-nine Ukrainian parliamentarians submitted a motion to the Ukrainian Constitutional Court on Friday to ask it to analyze the constitutionality of the legislation obliging the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to indicate its affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church in its name.
The matter concerns the legislation amending Article 12 of the Ukrainian law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations concerning the names of “religious organizations (associations) that are a structural part of a religious organization (association) whose administrative center is located outside of Ukraine in the state that is qualified by the law as one that has committed military aggression against Ukraine and/or temporarily occupied part of Ukrainian territory.”
The text of the motion is posted on the Constitutional Court’s website.
In particular, the deputies asked the court to open constitutional proceedings to check this legislation for constitutionality and rule it as unconstitutional.
The motion was signed by 49 parliamentarians, most of them from the Opposition Bloc faction (including its head Vadim Novinsky), and also from the Vozrozhdeniye (Revival) group (Anton Kisse and Andrey Shipko) plus unaffiliated deputies Vladimir Litvin and Yury Boiko, who has been expelled from the Opposition Bloc.
The Rada passed the legislation on December 20, 2018.
SOURCE: Interfax
