Kyiv District Administrative Court on Feb. 12 again failed to issue a ruling on the case of Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun, who is challenging a suit to strip her of her ministerial powers.
Suprun said the judge hearing the case, Sergei Karakashian, who also issued the initial ruling to strip her of her powers on Feb. 5, had been in the deliberation room for more than a day, but failed to produce a ruling before the end of the working day.
“The work of (the Ministry of Health) has been blocked for more than seven days,” Suprun wrote on Twitter after the court hearing closed. “Tomorrow at 10:00 we will be in the district Administrative Court and hold a briefing.”
At the previous day’s hearing she had begged the judge to unblock the supply of medicines across Ukraine, which she said has been halted because she cannot exercise her powers.
“Only the minister can sign a permit for the delivery of drugs in Ukraine,” Suprun said. “More than 600 million drugs are in our warehouses and we want to bring them to people. Some of them have a very short expiration date. We need you to unlock it. That’s all.”
Ihor Mosiychuk, a lawmaker from the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, launched the case against Suprun on the basis that she had exceeded the maximum one-month period allowed for being an acting minister. Suprun has been in the role since 2016.
Lawyers have argued that the court’s ruling to strip Suprun of her powers is unjustified, as she was appointed to her post directly by the Cabinet of Ministers, and that order by the government is still legally in force.
The U.S.-born Suprun returned to Ukraine on the eve of the EuroMaidan Revolution, which drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, 2014, and has been in charge of Ukraine’s health care reforms since July 27, 2016, when she was appointed as acting minister by Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers.
