KIEV, April 7 – First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Kliuyev said Wednesday the Constitutional Court has approved the ruling that deems the governing coalition – and the government – as created in line with the constitution.

The comment from the senior government official, carried by a government statement, comes before the court has actually announced the ruling.

“Thanks God, a stable government has emerged in Ukraine,” Kliuyev said while introducing local officials in Crimea.

The comment is controversial as it shows the government may have had access to the Constitutional Court, which is a supposed to be a separate branch of power.

President Viktor Yanukovych has publically said he wanted “very much” the Constitutional Court to approve the ruling that legalizes the governing coalition.

Yanukovych said last week he will “pray to God” for the court to approve the favorable ruling that allows to avoid parliamentary election.

The ruling – if eventually confirmed by the official announcement from the Constitutional Court – is controversial and will most likely be attacked by the opposition.

The court has been deliberating since March 11 on whether the governing coalition has been created last month in line with the constitution.

The constitution demands the coalition to be created by groups, not individual lawmakers, controlling the majority of seats in the 450-seat Parliament.

Yanukovych’s Regions Party, the Communist Party and the Volodymyr Lytvyn Bloc - numbering a total of 219 lawmakers – managed to create the 235-strong coalition only after 16 defectors from two opposition groups had joined them.

“I am disappointed with the attempts to dismantle democratic achievements,” Viktor Yushchenko, a former president, said Wednesday. “This is an easy-going attitude towards the key establishment of the government, in particular the formation of the institute of parliamentary majority.”

Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who controls more than 150 opposition lawmakers in the 450-seat Parliament, on Tuesday vowed to press for the dismissal of judges that voted in favor of the controversial ruling. (tl/ez)