Putin's invasion of the Crimea was justified

The Revolution In Ukraine Was Unconstitutional: President Removed From Power Unconstitutionally The rebellion completely disregarded the Constitution of Ukraine and used forceful coercive means to seize power from the legitimate government. The "uprising" can only be described as a coup. The vote to remove Yanukovych, the president of Ukraine, did not follow constitutional procedures. Under Articles 108-112 of Ukraine"s constitution, there are four ways a sitting president may leave office between elections: resignation, incapacitation, death, and impeachment. None of the first three happened. Yanukovych has vehemently denied that he resigned. Having decamped Kyiv, he actually asserted his role as head of state, calling the vote "illegal." "I'm not going to leave Ukraine or go anywhere. I'm not going to resign. I'm a legitimately elected president," he said. So that leaves impeachment. According to Article 111, impeachment must follow a specific set of procedures: 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. A final vote to convict may only come after receipt of a judgment from the Constitutional Court that "the acts, of which the President of Ukraine is accused, contain elements of treason or other crime." And this final vote would have taken the votes of at least 3/4 of all MPs (338/450), whereas only 328 MPs voted for impeachment. This means the takeover is was unconstitutional. Since the rioting revolutionaries seized power by using force and unconstitutionally deposed the president it satisfies the legal definition of a coup: An often violent, always sudden and unlawful replacement of an existing government." This point made clear by political scientist, Jay Ulfelder: "Even if we assume, as I do, that most participants in that uprising would not have physically harmed Yanukovich had they captured him, their forceful attempts to seize and occupy government buildings and their clashes with state security forces are clearly coercive acts....So, technically speaking, Yanukovych"s removal checks all of the boxes for what we would conventionally call a coup. We can quibble about how relevant the threat of force was to this outcome, and thus whether or not the label "parliamentary coup" might fit better than plain old coup, but the basic issue doesn't seem especially ambiguous." Changes Were Originally Unconstitutional The deal which the rebels managed to reach through rioting restored the 2010 amendments which were in had already deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on October 1st 2010. On November 18, 2010 by The Venice Commission made a report on the opinions of the court in which it stated "It also considers highly unusual that far-reaching constitutional amendments, including the change of the political system of the country - from a parliamentary system to a parliamentary presidential one - are declared unconstitutional by a decision of the Constitutional Court after a period of 6 years." The 2004 constitutional amendments were passed in Parliament only with limited with limited consultation and discussion between political forces, in the context of the Orange Revolution. They therefore attracted criticism from several internal and external bodies (the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the Venice Commission).The rebels have been fighting for a cause deemed illegal by Ukraine's Constitutional Court and other legal bodies. Implementation Of Amendments - Legally questionable But even if the rebels had been fighting for legitimate constitutional change the way the changes were created is, legally, very questionable. The changes were passed under a simplified procedure without any decision of the relevant committee and was passed in the first and the second reading in one voting by 386 deputies. Justification Putin had moral and legal justification for his intervention. 58% of Crimean's are ethnic Russian. In a poll held by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in May 2009 in Ukraine, 76% respondents respected the Russian establishment. This new government which had sprung up through illegal methods was anti Russian. It was a danger to ethnic Russians and did not support the views of the majority in Ukraine who respect the Russian establishment. Putin was protecting Russians when he intervened. But it seems that the U.S have no right in criticising military intervention based on a humanitarian precedent. NATO forces led by the United States attacked Serbia in order to rescue Kosovo from "ethnic cleansing" by Serbian troops and paramilitaries. The United States, like Russia now, lacked UN authorization. The United States, like Russia, were working on a humanitarian basis. Later, a quasi-official justification was ginned up: the invasion was "illegal but legitimate" (according to one source) because of its humanitarian purpose. Putin could thus argue for an implicit or "evolving" exception to the rules against use of force when humanitarian concerns are at issue. To avoid contradicting his position on Syria, he can argue that the distinction is that he is responsible for protecting ethnic Russian inhabitants of Ukraine, and that the mixture of populations in Ukraine could have fuel an even bloodier civil war unless Russia had moved quickly and firmly. Russia was legally justified under international law to intervene because it was asked to by the legitimate president. Russia has displayed a letter from the ousted president asking for military help in suppressing the revolt. The current government is illegitimate, because Yanukovych was not properly removed from power in a formal impeachment. I have already established that president yanukovych is legally the legitimate president which means that under international law Putin actually does have the legal right to military intervention. The letter from Viktor Yanukovich (the rightful president) was sent to Vladimir Putin. An extract from the letter shows that Putin was definitely asked to intervene: "I would call on the president of Russia, Mr Putin, asking him to use the armed forces of the Russian Federation to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order, stability and defending the people of Ukraine". Ashley S Deeks who studies at University of Virginia School of Law and specialises in international law states: "There are three cases in which one state may use force in or against another state: when the Security Council authorizes it under Chapter VII; when the territorial state consents; or when it is acting in self-defence against the territorial state. " Crimea's legitimate government consented, making the intervention legal. The International Court of Justice which has confirmed and applied the general rule that intervention is "allowable at the request of the government". This evidence shows that legal intervention was justified. Russia needed to send in troops to safeguard Russians or Russian speakers in Ukraine from violent reprisals. Putin himself speaks legal justification for intervention: "It is this uncontrolled crime" he said while talking about the unlawful revolution "Therefore, if we see such uncontrolled crime spreading to the eastern regions of the country, and if the people ask us for help, while we already have the official request from the legitimate president, we retain the right to use all available means to protect those people. We believe this would be absolutely legitimate." Ukrainians cast their votes on 16th of March 2014 and 97% of the voters wished to join Russia. Putin had parliamentary approval for a military intervention. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com...