I have been reading about the Ukrainian Constitutional Court.

They are going to settle the current dispute between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Both sides have agreed to accept the court's decision on the following question.

Does President Viktor Yushchenko have the constitutional authority to dismiss the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) and call for new elections?

President Yushchenko issued an order to dissolve Verkhovna Rada on April 2, 2007. Prime Minister Yanukovych has strongly resisted because this is where his political power is based.

Both sides have turned out thousands of people to protest in the Kyiv streets, sidewalks and parks. There is some cynicism about whether these protesters are being paid.

Today the political parties agreed to stop the mass protests. Except now Prime Minister Yanukovych is claiming that 2,000 men will be walking around Kyiv pretending to be in his party (Party of Regions). And they will be picking fights and therefore smearing his political party.

Hmmm.... How odd that Yanukovych knows exactly how many men will be walking around Kyiv trying to cause problems.

Tempers fray in Ukraine constitutional hearings on Tuesday. It sounds like the Yanukovych camp has decided they are losing. We should have the final ruling by Friday.



In the meantime, Yanukovych: Political crisis will not stop Ukraine toward democratic changes. Yanukovych's understanding of democracy is very odd. You don't get to rewrite the rules so that you hold all the power.

If you have some time, I recommend reading the virtually unavoidable constitutional crisis of Ukraine. It was written by US Federal Judge Bohdan A. Futey.

This political fight is likely why a new director hasn't been appointed to the SDA.

Rumor (take this with a grain of salt AKA I could be wrong) is that the SDA won't accept dossiers for a short while. And they may issue appointments at a slow pace. And this is all linked to getting a new director. Until the SDA gets a new director, the other open positions cannot be filled. So the SDA continues to be understaffed.

But the SDA will continue to process dossiers and provide referrals to families with appointments. Adoption isn't shut down.

The SDA (Ukrainian government office that holds centralize authority over all adoptions) stopped accepting dossiers around March 27. And they accepted 5 dossiers for American families on April 16. But I cannot find anyone who submitted a dossier since then.

Anyone know about any dossier being accepted since April 16? If you don't want to post a comment, you can email me at adoptukraineblog@adoptionmail.com