I know you are grasping at straws, but they voted 328 to 0. There was no opposition. The rest of the delegates either failed to show up or didn't vote. The Ukrainian parliament declared the president constitutionally unable to serve out his term. They acted according to the constitution, so it wasn't illegal.
We are after all talking about a country that was abandoned by their president. He fled, as he knew he wasn't going to get away with the same crap he had pulled on his countrymen anymore. He failed to sign in the law that would have reverted the country back to the 2004 constitution, and thus left the country in a sort of legal limbo. This has, unfortunately, let a lot of pro-dictatorship people in the West and East grasp on the straw of the 10 missing votes. The Ukrainian parliament did what they could and unanimously voted to impeach Yanukovych.
What Russia is doing is, as you admit, completely illegal, as was the Crimean referendum. I'm glad we agree on that at least. Perhaps now you'll get on board in discussing what is to be done against the aggressor state Russia.
Why did the rest of the delegates not show up for the vote? Intimidated? Kept from showing? Afraid?
It's hardly the first time a parliament was manipulated by force.
No, this is actually a fact. I am not grasping at nothing because the fact is they required another 10 votes to remove him. They didn't have the necessary votes to remove him. The vote did not uphold to the constitutional guidelines and required a 338 vote. That is a fact, that is how it is per constitution. It was a coup.
"But a legal gap remains. According to the terms of an EU-brokered peace deal finalized on February 21, Yanukovych was due to sign a measure returning Ukraine to its 2004 constitution.
Yanukovych, however, failed to sign the measure. The omission appears to leave Kyiv in the kind of legal limbo that may prove fodder for future arguments against the current government transition.
The 1996 and the 2004 constitutions are uniform when it comes to the reasons for removing a president, with Article 111 stating the parliament has the right to initiate a procedure of impeachment "if he commits treason or other crime."
However, it is not clear that the hasty February 22 vote upholds constitutional guidelines, which call for a review of the case by Ukraine's Constitutional Court and a three-fourths majority vote by the Verkhovna Rada -- i.e., 338 lawmakers.
Pro-Yanukovych lawmakers may also argue that under the 1996 constitution, it should have been the current acting prime minister, Serhiy Arbuzov, who assumed power after Yanukovych's removal."
http://www.rferl.org/content/was-yan.../25274346.html
Now look at Ukraine's constitution here, article 108-112 -
http://www.president.gov.ua/en/content/chapter05.html
Under Articles 108-112 of Ukraine’s constitution you can see there are 4 ways the president may leave office during his tenure: resignation (he did not), inability to exercise presidential authority for health reasons; (he is fit and healthy), death (he is alive), and impeachment. You can see for yourself in article 111 that impeachment must follow a proper procedure: Parliament must vote to impeach and then convene a committee to investigate. That committee must investigate and report back to parliament, which must then vote to bring charges.
This did not happen, Yanukovych was illegally removed from office.
As for him apparently abandoning his post, this doesn't actually matter the only way he can give up his post is to personally announce his resignation to parliament. This did not happen.
Actually I questioned the legitimately of pretty much everything.
Finally there is nothing Europe can really do to Russia which will be of any significance. The US will more likely be harsher...Europe however won't come to any agreement because Europe needs Russia, namely the Germans. Putin doesn't give a **** about being out of the G8. In addition to that Putin has played his hand, he'll probably cause further instability in Ukraine but he has no interests in making East Ukraine apart of Russia. The Crimea is very important to Russia and they cannot afford to give it up. Putin has the support of BRIC's and as a result of the west being hostile towards Russia, Putin is going to open up deeper trade with Iran violating sanctions in place. Fun times ahead.
Putin is a boss.
