KIEV, April 4 – Ukraine’s political crisis deepened sharply on Thursday when pro-government lawmakers – in a highly controversial move – held a session outside Parliament and claimed to have approved 20 bills.

Opposition lawmakers, who had blocked Parliament’s main session hall in protest of their recently defeated plan for Kiev's mayoral election, declared the session to be unconstitutional.

“This is a strange session with an unclear number of lawmakers,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, the leader of the opposition Batkivshchyna, said. “Any decisions approved at such a session will be deemed unconstitutional because it was approved outside Parliament and by an insufficient number of votes.”

The development underscores an escalation of tensions between pro-government and opposition lawmakers after Parliament has been blocked for the third time over the past four months.

But instead of negotiations to solve the crisis, the ruling Regions Party, joined by the Communist Party and some independent lawmakers, moved to a building across the street from President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration to approve the bills.

"Today's events represent deepening of the parliamentary crisis, moving it into a new phase,” Volodymyr Fesenko, the head of Penta political consultancy, said. “In fact we’re talking about a split. If this continues to escalate Parliament awaits dissolution.”

Opposition leaders called their supporters to hold a rally in Kiev on Sunday as part of the Rise Ukraine campaign currently spreading throughout western regions of Ukraine.

The law that specifically regulates Parliament’s work calls for any legislation to be approved in the session of Parliament, a clause that makes holding session outside Parliament controversial.

“Any legislation can be approved exceptionally in the session hall of Parliament,” Oleksandr Moroz, a former speaker of Parliament and a former ally of Yanukovych, wrote on his Facebook page. “They can consult anywhere, even on the street, yet decisions must be approved only in the session hall."

Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Rybak, who led the controversial session, insisted that he was acting in line with the regulations, but admitted that the opposition lawmakers may sue him anyway.

"All articles the regulations have been met,” Rybak said. “I know they have already filed lawsuits against me in court when we just started working [four months ago]. They will file again now.”

Volodymyr Makeyenko, a senior Regions Party lawmaker, also defended the idea of holding the session outside of Parliament.

"If our colleagues blocked Parliament, we, according to regulations and the Constitution of Ukraine, must work,” Makeyenko said. “We decided to get together at another location. The regulations allow us to do that.”

“Our task is to make laws, including those made today. All adopted bills are economic bills, nothing on politics.”

“Voters elected us, so we must work. Which room we work from is not what voters are very much concerned about.” (tl/ez)