The Ukrainian Parliament today annulled The Law on Legal Acts (No 1343-1). A total of 239 MPs today voted in favor of annulling the law. The current president, Viktor Yanukovych, sent back the law without signing it, saying that it requires additional work.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has said that it is necessary to change the country's constitution but failed to indicate precisely what changes he has in mind. During an address to the nation marking Constitution Day on June 28, Yanukovych said that constitutional amendments adopted during the Orange Revolution in late 2004, which shifted powers from the presidency to the Ukrainian Parliament and government, had led to a "serious crisis of power". Yanukovych insisted that the changes should not be turned into a "political action" and should be based on "social consensus". The following is an excerpt from Yanukovych's address on June 28:

The Security Service of Ukraine has turned into a repression tool, the first deputy head of the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc’s parliamentary faction, Andriy Kozhemyakin, has said, the UNIAN news agency has reported.

The political council of the opposition People's Self-Defence party has expelled MPs Oleh Novikov and Kateryna Lukyanova from the party for defecting to the ruling parliamentary coalition, the party's press service has said in a statement.

The clause on holding simultaneous local elections in Ukraine on March 27, 2011 is not in line with the provisions of Article 157 of the Constitution of Ukraine.

Volodymyr Yaroshchuk, an MP of the pro-presidential Party of Regions, has accused the deputy prime minister in charge of law-enforcement, Volodymyr Sivkovych, of involvement in unlawful land grabs.

Speaking in the Ukrainian Parliament on June 18, Yaroshchuk said: "I have learnt facts about the involvement of the deputy prime minister for law-enforcement, Volodymyr Sivkovych, in operations that are not consistent with this official's high status. We have information about numerous instances of Sivkovych's interference in the functioning of the courts and law-enforcement agencies by threats and coercion with the aim of taking possession of state property".

Yaroshchuk said that Sivkovych, as head of the commission for combating unlawful raiding and the forceful seizure of companies, was abusing his post "for diametrically opposite purposes".

"He has been facilitating forceful seizures, providing a 'cover' for this, sending his raiders to various enterprises, and actively using his post to give instructions to judges over the phone," he said. According to Yaroshchuk, Sivkovych was involved in the illegal appropriation of 220 hectares of land on an island in Kyiv Region.

Interior Minister Anatoliy Mohylov answered questions posed by MPs at the latest government hour session held at today's plenary sitting of the Ukrainian Parliament. He initially answered questions submitted in writing in advance by MPs from the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine People's Self-Defence Bloc factions. Afterwards, opposition MPs as well as those from the ruling coalition had the opportunity to ask questions verbally. In the latter half hour most of the questions asked came from MPs belonging to the coalition.