Former head of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) Viktor Shokin has said the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to dismiss him was made with procedural violations, namely by votes cast by parliament deputies not present,” Shokin’s lawyer Mykola Olefirenko has said.
“The decision by parliament to dismiss Shokin was made with violations of existing Ukrainian legislation. One of the most egregious violations was violation of the voting procedure – “button pressing” – votes cast by MPs not present in the chamber,” the lawyer told journalists on Mach 29 in Kyiv.
According to Olefirenko, there are grounds for satisfying Shokin’s complaints. Moreover, the widespread court practice in analogous cases in European Union (EU) states regarding human rights. For example, there is the Olelksandr Volkov versus Ukraine case, in which “button-pressing” in parliament was grounds for rescinding the decision to reinstate Volkov as a justice of Ukraine’s Supreme Court.
Olefirenko said voting cards of MPs absent in the chamber were used to vote for his dismissal.
Ukraine’s High Court of Justice informed the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency that Shokin is asking for the Rada decision to dismiss him as PGO to be voided and that he be reinstated at the PGO in an “administrative post.”
On March 29, 2016 Ukraine’s parliament voted to sack Shokin. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed an order to dismiss Shokin on April 3, 2016, and Yuriy Lutsenko became PGO head in May 2016.
