Read the U.S. State Department’s report on Ukraine’s human rights situation in 2017.
Acting United States Secretary of State John Sullivan on April 22 urged Ukrainian authorities to establish a truly independent anti-corruption court, with the country having made no progress on the issue since the Verkhovna Rada passed a bill on the court at first reading on March 1.
The Department of State also criticized alleged human rights violations by Ukrainian authorities in a country report on human rights practices.
“Today, Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, (and) reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression,” Heather Nauert, the Department of State’s spokeswoman, said on Twitter on April 22. “Acting Secretary Sullivan urged Ukraine to redouble reform efforts and adhere to (International Monetary Fund) programs by adopting legislation to establish a truly independent anti-corruption court and raising gas tariffs to import parity levels.”
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries said in an April 23 communique that Ukraine should set up an independent anti-corruption court in line with the recommendations of the European Commission for Democracy through Law, also known as the Venice Commission. The commission said that Ukraine’s foreign partners should play a crucial role in the court’s creation.
Court opposition
After the Verkhovna Rada passed a bill on the anti-corruption court at first reading on March 1, President Petro Poroshenko’s longstanding resistance to the court surfaced again.
In a March 6 interview with the Financial Times, Poroshenko refused to guarantee that the court would be independent. He said that he would resist Western donors’ demands that they have a crucial role in the court’s creation, claiming that this violates Ukraine’s Constitution and sovereignty.
Vitaly Tytych, a member of the Public Integrity Council, and other lawyers argued that a crucial role for foreign donors does not contradict Ukraine’s Constitution and sovereignty. They see it as a ploy by Poroshenko to ensure that he controls the anti-corruption court.
Foreigners’ role
Tytych and lawyer Markiyan Halabala said that Ukraine’s foreign donors and partners should dominate in a specially created chamber of the High Qualification Commission that will select anti-corruption judges, to make sure the selection process is independent.
Poroshenko’s bill on the anti-graft court has been lambasted by Ukraine’s foreign partners and civil society because it gives foreign donors only an advisory role in the court’s creation.
Under the bill, the discredited High Qualification Commission and the High Council of Justice will play the dominant role in the anti-corruption court’s creation.
Public Integrity Council members argue that these governing bodies cannot be trusted because they rigged the competition for the Supreme Court last year. The bodies deny the accusations.
Assessment
During the Supreme Court competition, 90 points were assigned for anonymous legal knowledge tests and 120 points for anonymous practical tests, and the High Qualification Commission could arbitrarily assign 790 points without giving any explicit reasons, Tytych argued.
In order to make the assessment objective, the law on the judiciary and the High Qualification Commission’s internal regulations must be amended to clearly assign 750 points for anonymous legal knowledge tests and practical tests in competitions for both the anti-corruption court and other courts, Tytych said.
Discredited judges
Thirty discredited judges who do not meet integrity standards, according to the Public Integrity Council, were nominated for the Supreme Court by the High Qualification Commission, and 29 of them were approved by the High Council of Justice. Poroshenko has already appointed 27 of them to the Supreme Court (out of 115 appointees).
These judges have undeclared wealth, participated in political cases, made unlawful rulings, including those recognized as unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights, or are investigated in corruption cases.
Valentyna Simonenko, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by the High Qualification Commission and the High Council of Justice, registered as a Russian taxpayer in Russian-annexed Crimea in 2015, according to the official register of Russia’s Federal Tax Service.
She denies accusations of wrongdoing.
“By appealing to the illegal occupation authorities and assuming legal obligations before the aggressor country, she effectively recognized the jurisdiction of Crimean occupation authorities and agreed to pay taxes to the aggressor country’s budget, at whose expense the war against the Ukrainian people is being waged,” the Public Integrity Council said.
Sheremet’s murder
The Department of State also criticized human rights violations in Ukraine.
“Authorities made no arrests during the year in connection with the 2016 killing of prominent journalist Pavel Sheremet,” according to the Department of State in its country report on Ukraine. “Human rights and press freedom watchdog groups expressed concern about the lack of progress in the government’s investigation, suggesting high-level obstruction or investigatory incompetence as potential reasons.”
Drew Sullivan, a co-founder of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a Kyiv Post partner, said in an April 17 interview with the Ukrainska Pravda online newspaper that he believed Ukrainian authorities were involved in Sheremet’s murder. The authorities deny the accusations.
“As far as Poroshenko is concerned, we don’t know whether Sheremet’s murder was ordered by him or someone from his administration but think that Ukrainian authorities are implicated in this,” he said. “The authorities intentionally fail to find out the truth and do not publish information that must be public.”
The OCCRP on May 10 published evidence that Ihor Ustymenko, who was a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officer as of 2014, had visited Sheremet’s future murder site several times and came out of the car there on the eve of the assassination. The SBU has denied involvement, saying that Ustymenko quit the agency in 2014.
But Sullivan said the authorities had failed to provide evidence and explanations that Ustymemnko does not currently work at the SBU. According to Kyiv Post sources who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, he still works at the SBU’s Odesa branch.
Deportation of Georgians
“There were claims that officials engaged in politically motivated deportations without adherence to due process. For example, on October 21, officials deported four Georgian citizens whose residence permits had been cancelled, according to the State Migration Service,” the Department of State wrote. “Human Rights Ombudsman Valeriya Lutkovska stated the deportations occurred without the required court warrants. Some human rights groups claimed the men were hooded and beaten during the deportation process and alleged they were targeted because of their ties to opposition figure Mikhail Saakashvili.”
In October and November, seven Georgian associates of Saakashvili were deported to Georgia by Ukrainian authorities without court warrants, with the Georgians claiming they had been kidnapped and beaten. Under Ukrainian law, forced deportation is only possible if authorized by a court.
The authorities have so far failed to present documents for the cancelation of the Georgians’ residence permits.
The Kyiv Administrative District Court on March 29 recognized the State Migration Service’s decision to expel one of the Georgians, Mikhail Abzianidze, from Ukraine to Georgia in October as unlawful and canceled the decision. However, the court ruling does not allow Abzianidze to return to Ukraine and re-join his wife and daughter.
Saakashvili himself was deported from Ukraine to Poland without a court warrant on Feb. 12. Under Ukrainian law, forced deportation is only possible if authorized by a court. Saakashvili’s detention and expulsion violated numerous laws, lawyers for Saakashvili and independent attorneys said. The authorities deny accusations of wrongdoing, claiming that Saakashvili’s deportation was legal.
The National Police on April 14 opened a criminal case into what Saakashvili’s lawyers believe to be his kidnapping by Border Guards and unlawful expulsion from Ukraine on Feb. 12 at the request of the lawyers.
EuroMaidan crimes
The Department of State also said that human rights groups had criticized the low number of convictions for the murder of more than 100 protesters during the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution and other EuroMaidan crimes, despite considerable evidence.
The in absentia cases against the organizers of EuroMaidan murders and into corruption under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych can’t be sent to trial because Ukrainian authorities have failed to bring Ukrainian law on in absentia trials in line with international law, according to Sergii Gorbatuk, head of the in absentia investigations unit at the prosecutor’s office.
Only one person — a pro-government thug, or titushka — is currently in jail for violence against EuroMaidan protesters.
Arbitrary killings
The Department of State also said that “there was at least one report that the government or its agents committed possible arbitrary or unlawful killings.”
“For instance, on December 6, human rights groups reported that beating(s) by police might have caused the death of 25-year-old Dmytro Lystovnychy in a Lutsk pretrial detention center. Lystovnychy had been arrested four days prior for allegedly stealing a bottle of whiskey,” the department wrote. “While the State Penitentiary Service initially alleged Lystovnychy had died of “acute hepatitis” and then asserted that he had committed suicide, Lystovnychy’s family publicized photos of his body that showed significant injuries consistent with beatings. After the family filed a complaint, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a murder investigation, which continued at year’s end.”
Occupied territories
Meanwhile, the Department of States also criticized violations of human rights by Russia and its proxies in Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas.
“The most significant human rights issues included unlawful killings and politically motivated disappearances in the context of the conflict in the Donbas region; torture; and harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons and detention centers; arbitrary arrest and detention; and lack of judicial independence,” the department said.
