The European Court for Human Rights ruled July 3 that ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko’s arrest on Dec. 26, 2010 was illegal and violated his rights to liberty and security, raising hope for him and other imprisoned opposition politicians, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, that they might be set free.
However, it is highly unlikely that the court will help release Ukraine’s opposition leaders early enough to take part in the Oct. 28 parliamentary elections. Moreover, Ukraine only fully or partially obeys 5 percent of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights and might ignore this one as well. The court issues about 60 adverse judgments against Ukraine every year.
The court found Lutsenko’s arrest to be “arbitrary and unlawful” and violated several articles of the Convention of Human Rights. The court also said that the reasoning Ukrainian prosecutors and courts used to put ex-interior minister behind bars has “clearly demonstrated the authorities’ attempt to punish Mr. Lutsenko for publicly disagreeing with accusations against him and for asserting his innocence.”
The ruling also held that Ukraine has to pay Lutsenko 15,000 euros in damage.
Lutsenko was arrested on Dec. 26, 2010 near his home in Kyiv while walking his dog. Prosecutors said he should be behind bars as he allegedly could influence investigation and was giving interviews denying his guilt. Earlier in February he was found guilty of exceeding his authority as interior minister in giving his driver various benefits and helping him allocate an apartment at the government’s expense and sentenced to four years in jail.
Lutsenko has always denied the charges, saying Ukraine’s leadership was after him to sideline him from politics as one of the biggest critics of President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration.
In August, the European Court for Human Right is scheduled to consider a similar claim by Tymoshenko, who says her arrest on Aug. 5, 2011 was illegal.
She was sentenced last October to seven years in jail for exceeding her authority in brokering Jan. 19, 2009 gas deal with Russia.
These and other trials into opposition politicians are viewed in the West to be politically motivated trials to bar Yanukovych’s opponents from politics.
“I demand to enforce the ruling of the European Court for Human Rights,” Lutsenko’s Self-Defense Party’s press service quoted his statement after the ruling was announced.
In the statement he also demanded criminal responsibility for prosecutors and judged who put and held him in jail.
Both Tymoshenko and Lutsenko hope that the European court might eventually set them free.
But a decision by the European court on the jailing of the two is not expected anytime soon, as both of them have not yet went through all appeal courts in Ukraine challenging their sentencing verdicts, which is needed before filing a complaint to the European court for Human Rights.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]
