Staffers of the banned opposition newspaper Pravda Ukrainy struck back Friday with multimillion-hryvnia lawsuits against top Ukrainian officials, among them a Hr 5 million ($2.6 million) claim against President Leonid Kuchma.
And while legal experts said the journalists are unlikely to collect, Pravda’s top editor said he is determined to pursue the case to the end.
‘We will win anyway, we’ll go to the Supreme Court, then to Strasbourg, but we won’t let it go,’ said Oleksandr Horobets in an interview on Monday.
Strasbourg is the site of the European Court of Human Rights, which can hear appeals of Ukrainian court rulings dealing with those issues under a Council of Europe treaty ratified by Ukraine’s Parliament last year.
In a separate lawsuit, Pravda’s employees have demanded another Hr 5 million from Zynovy Kulyk, the information minister who late last month ordered the newspaper closed, purportedly because of irregularities in its registration documents.
Some of the government’s critics have charged that Pravda has been banned for a muckraking investigation of government corruption and its promotion of the Hromada Party led by Kuchma foe Pavlo Lazarenko in upcoming parliamentary elections.
Pravda’s editorial staff has hired a team of five lawyers to pursue the cases against Kuchma, Kulyk and junior officials charged with enforcing the publication ban. Their legal team includes Viktor Nikazakov, one of Kyiv’s leading authorities on cases involving the press who also predicted victory.
‘We would not do it if we didn’t think that we could win,’ he said.
Few outside observers share Horobets’ and Nikazakov’s optimism. Many said the case against Kuchma is weak.
The paper claimed in its lawsuit that the president should have overruled his information minister and overturned the publication ban in his capacity as the guarantor of the constitution.
Tim O’Connor, resident advisor for ProMedia, a U.S. government-funded group promoting free press in Ukraine, said it is difficult to win court cases against high government officials in any country.
Robert Liechte, a U.S. lawyer who has been following court cases involving Ukrainian media outlets agreed, adding that Pravda’s claim lacks merit.
Ivan Makar, a lawyer and former Parliament deputy, also said Pravda has no case against the president. Makar’s own opposition newspaper was shut down in 1996 on the basis of a court ruling after it published an unflattering caricature of Kuchma.
He said Pravda should have appealed to Kuchma to overturn the ban, and sue him only if he failed to respond. ‘I do not have any doubts that [the ban on Pravda] was carried out with his blessing, but to sue him you have to have formal basis,’ Makar said.
Nikazakov responded that he is looking forward to putting Kuchma on the witness stand and asking him whether he knows what is happening in the Ukrainian press.
‘It would be great if he said he does not,’ Nikazakov said. ‘The president has been included to put on a good show. We can have a laugh and do a good deed at the same time.’
Nikazakov might have to wait forever even if Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court does not dismiss the claim. Last year, Kuchma and his representatives ignored court summonses to contest two claims lodged against the president by private citizens, stalling the trials.
The president’s advisor on legal policy could not be reached for comment on those cases or the Pravda staff’s lawsuit. Nikazakov, however, said a court case can proceed if a defendant fails to appear in court twice without a good reason.
‘Of course, few judges would dare to make a ruling against the president,’ he acknowledged.
Analysts agreed that the newspaper might have better luck against Kulyk, the information minister. Nikazakov said he expects the Kuchma appointee to cough up the entire Hr 5 million claim. ‘He has enough property to cover the cost,’ said the lawyer.
O’Connor said that regardless of the damages awarded, a victory for Pravda’s staff would boost freedom of the press across Ukraine.
‘It would be nice if the rights of the press were clarified, because media in Ukraine is not in a clear and confident situation,’ he said.
