(19 Apr 2007)
1. Wide shot of government building
2. Round table, ministers, including Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych at the head
3. Mid shot of ministers, with Yanukovych on the right
4. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister of Ukraine:
"This is inadmissible in any country, that the work of the Constitutional Court is blocked by lawmakers who prevent the judges from getting to their offices. This means that radical opposition will not stop at anything. The words 'law' or 'constitution' do not exist for them. They have only their point of view."
5. Wide shot of meeting
6. Wide of police and protesters
7. Opposition protesters with orange flags (Nasha Ukraina pro-presidential supporters) in front of police
8. Yulia Tymoshenko walks into news conference
9. Camera crews
10. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of opposition:
"Whatever will be the ruling of the Constitutional Court, it will not remove the political crisis, and under no circumstances can a recipe be found to stop confrontation except through early elections."
11. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Vyacheslav Kirilenko, leader of "Our Ukraine" party:
"Irrespective of the decision of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court, the Parliament, the Supreme Rada of the fifth convocation, will not work anyway, since out of two factions there are over 150 deputies who will terminate their parliamentary membership, and under Article 82 of the Constitution, the Supreme Rada has power only when two-thirds or more of the people's deputies are at work."
12. Wide shot opposition leaders at news conference
13. Troops in urban fatigues walking
14. Various of protesters trying to break through police line to gain entry to the Constitutional Court garden
STORYLINE:
Thousands of opponents of Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych blocked the entrances to Ukraine's Constitutional Court on Wednesday.
The move prompted riot police to intervene to allow judges in for the second day of hearings into the legality of a presidential decree dissolving parliament.
The session began more than an hour late after police linked arms and formed a corridor to usher judges
through a scrum of flag-waving demonstrators, who included rival lawmakers pushing and shoving each other outside the court's black metal gates.
"This is inadmissible in any country, that the work of the Constitutional Court is blocked by lawmakers who prevent the judges from getting to their offices. This means that radical opposition will not stop at anything," Yanukovych said.
"The words 'law' or 'constitution' do not exist for them. They have only their point of view," he added.
Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko signed the dissolution decree on April 2, accusing his archrival
Yanukovych of trying to usurp power.
Yanukovych and his majority in parliament said the move was unconstitutional and appealed to the Constitutional Court.
The standoff has plunged this ex-Soviet republic into its worst political crisis since the 2004 protests that propelled Yushchenko to power and became known as the Orange Revolution.
Both Yushchenko and Yanukovych have agreed to abide by whatever the 18-judge court rules, but the bloc of former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and political parties allied with Yushchenko have contended that the court is too corrupt to render a just decision.
The court has one month to rule, but increasingly it looks like even a court decision will not be enough to end the
political paralysis seizing Ukraine.
During those mass protests, Yushchenko rallied his supporters on Kiev's Independence Square to protest against
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