President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on May 28 restored ex-Georgian President and former Odesa Oblast Governor Mikheil Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship.
Zelenskiy canceled ex-President Petro Poroshenko’s July 26, 2017 decision stripping Saakashvili of his citizenship.
The Georgian got Ukrainian citizenship from Poroshenko in 2015 – and lost it by his order two years later amid a political confrontation with Poroshenko. Before he was sent out of Ukraine by force, Saakashvili was an opposition gravity center and had started a political party.
The decision to deprive Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship and later to deport him in 2018 was blasted by Poroshenko’s critics as a violation of the law and political repression. The former Ukrainian president denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
Saakashvili said he would fly from Warsaw to Kyiv’s Boryspil Airport at 5.15 p.m. on May 29. The Border Guard said he would be allowed to enter Ukraine.
“This is not an issue of political taste, it’s an issue of justice,” Saakashvili told the Nash television channel on May 28. “The cancellation of my citizenship was a cowardly move by an unworthy president. And the restoration of my citizenship is a brave move by a worthy president.”
He also said he was ready to help Zelenskiy in some capacity.
“During my presidency, Georgia became recognized as the world’s top reformer,” Saakashvili told the Kyiv Post. “And for years, since I left that office, I’ve wanted to use the lessons I learned in Georgia to help Ukraine unleash its huge potential. Now, I feel optimistic that I will finally have an opportunity to do so, in some capacity.”
He added that “Ukraine voted for Zelenskiy against the failed status quo.”
“I have always challenged that status quo as well,” Saakashvili said. “Zelenskiy has already shown he’s the right man to lead in a critical time, and I’m ready to help in any way possible to move Ukraine forward.”
Citizenship saga
Poroshenko invited Saakashvili to Ukraine and appointed him as governor of Odesa Oblast in 2015. However, he deprived Saakashvili of his citizenship amid a major political confrontation with him in 2017, and the ex-Georgian president believes it to be a political reprisal. As a result, Saakashvili became stateless.
Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Volodymyr Aryev said in 2017 that Saakashvili had been stripped of citizenship because he had allegedly concealed information that he was under investigation in Georgia when he applied for citizenship in 2015.
Saakashvili and his lawyers argued that the cancellation of his citizenship contradicted Ukrainian and international law, the Constitution and due process, which is denied by Ukrainian authorities.
Kateryna Dronova, an editor of the VoxUkraine think tank’s legal unit, said in 2017 that Ukrainian authorities had violated due process when stripping Saakashvili of citizenship, and information on Georgian investigations cannot be grounds for stripping Saakashvili of citizenship because it was known to Ukrainian authorities in 2015.
She also said that international law banned the arbitrary and politically motivated cancellation of citizenship, especially when it results in a person becoming stateless.
Lawyer Vitaly Tytych told the Kyiv Post that Aryev’s justification would not be legal grounds for stripping Saakashvili of citizenship. Tytych said that only a conviction for a severe crime could be grounds for stripping someone of Ukrainian citizenship, while Saakashvili had not been convicted in any criminal cases before that.
Saakashvili’s return
Saakashvili returned to Ukraine by breaking through the Polish border in September 2017. Saakashvili’s lawyers said that crossing of the border “in cases of extreme necessity” was not illegal under Ukrainian law, while a Ukrainian court had found him guilty of an administrative infraction.
In December 2017 the Prosecutor General’s Office arrested and charged Saakashvili with complicity in tycoon Serhiy Kurchenko’s criminal group for allegedly receiving money from Kurchenko to finance protests against Poroshenko. Saakashvili has said he believes the case to be the result of Poroshenko’s political vendetta against him.
The prosecutors’ alleged evidence against Saakashvili was dismissed by independent lawyers as weak, and he was released from custody by Pechersk Court Judge Larysa Tsokol. She ruled that Saakashvili’s detention by the Security Service of Ukraine without a court warrant and any other legal grounds was unlawful.
Meanwhile, prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulik, who was in charge of the case, told the Kyiv Post that Poroshenko had interfered in the Saakashvili case and tried to order prosecutors to investigate and arrest certain Saakashvili allies. Poroshenko’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the issue.
Five Saakashvili supporters have been charged with “transporting” him through the border in what they see as political cases. Olha Halabala, a top official of Saakashvili’s party, said in 2017 that 450 activists linked to the former Georgian president were under investigation in various criminal cases.
Deportation
Ukrainian authorities then deported Saakashvili without a court order in February 2018. They said he had been expelled for illegally entering Ukraine in September – an accusation that he denies.
However, Ukrainian law explicitly bans deportation without a court order.
Saakashvili’s lawyers also argued his deportation was illegal because he had legal status in Ukraine – that of a permanent stateless resident, and because his application for political asylum was still being considered by courts.
In a similar way, in 2017 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. The authorities have denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
