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Parliament is not yet in a hurry to review the purge (Photo: Vitaliy Nosach, RBK-Ukraine)
For the past year, Ukraine’s politicians have been talking about plans to change the law on purification of power. To this, the country’s leadership is driven by criticism of the depravity in Ukrainian by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), as well as by the need to pay compensation to former officials. What prevents the authorities from updating the law – on the RBC-Ukraine material.
More than a year ago, the European Court of Human Rights issued its first decision on the legality of the Ukrainian purge. The ECHR criticized certain provisions of the law on the purge of power and awarded a moral compensation of 5,000 euros to the first five plaintiffs. The Cabinet of Ministers tried to appeal this decision to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR, but without success, at the end of February 2020 it entered into force.
What did the ECHR not suit him? The European Court noted that the Ukrainian authorities “did not take into account the individual role” of each official who fell into depravity due to his work in the state authorities during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych.
The ECHR’s verdict soon affected the rhetoric of the country’s leadership, which began to criticize the purge of power law. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the purge must be adjusted, and Rada Chairman Dmitry Razumkov stated bluntly that “(lustration, – ed.) don’t support “.
The Ministry of Justice has prepared a bill that would significantly change the very mechanism of power purge in Ukraine. It would also solve the problem of millionaire payments that the ECHR can grant to distinguished officials. But, despite the statements about the urgent need to adopt it, the project was not even presented to the Rada, the Cabinet sent it for review.
The law is “frozen”
What does the bill of the Ministry of Justice contribute? The purge will continue only in relation to the senior officials of the Yanukovych era (ministers and heads of state bodies), and the special commission will study the legality of the “cleansing” of other public officials. The Ministry of Justice planned to train it from public activists and foreign experts.
It is this “cleaning commission” that would deal with the out-of-court settlement of disputes with illustrious former officials and the question of paying them compensation. For example, if an official was illegally fired and it is no longer possible to restore him, then a one-time compensation will be about 25 thousand hryvnia. If you are reinstated, you will receive only the difference between the salary before the purge and the income during the forced vacation.
Another important point of the project of the Ministry of Justice was the abolition of the purge of the communist leaders. This type of punishment has simply lost its relevance at the moment, says Minister Denis Malyuska.
The Cabinet of Ministers planned to consider and pass this bill on July 1, but at the last minute withdrew the document for consideration and returned it for review. Now in the Ministry of Justice, the main reason for the delay is the position of the Rada deputies, extremely controversial on the issue of purging.
“There are people (in parliament, – ed.), who generally do not accept the abolition of debugging, while others want it to be removed entirely. And a document so more or less balanced (the bill of the Ministry of Justice, – ed.), which implements the decision of the ECHR, but does not completely cancel the purge, leads precisely to such a reaction – rejection “- explained in a comment to RBC-Ukraine, Deputy Minister of Justice – Commissioner for the ECHR Ivan Lishchina.
In parliament, not everyone is willing to change the purification of power law (Photo: Vitaliy Nosach, RBK-Ukraine)
The official describes the bill from the Ministry of Justice as “politically difficult”, but expects it to be put to a vote in parliament in 2021. “There is no other way, we have to change the legislation,” the lawyer emphasized.
Payment queue
The European Court operates according to the principle of jurisprudence, which means that there is no reason to expect that in similar cases the ECHR will rule in favor of the Ukrainian government and not of illustrious former officials, says Ivan Lishchina.
The information on the total number of plaintiffs who applied for the ECHR is classified and the Ministry of Justice is not the owner. Therefore, it is impossible to estimate the amount of compensation that Ukraine will have to pay for violations of the rights of enlightened persons, said the deputy minister.
The Ministry of Justice, in response to a request from RBC-Ukraine, indicated that already this year they began to pay the amount of compensation awarded by the “Europeans Themis”. So far, in April alone, 27.7 thousand euros have been paid, or about 818.8 thousand hryvnia.
But the total amount of compensation that the Ukrainian government will be forced to pay to illustrious officials could run into billions of hryvnias, believes former prosecutor Oleg Pidgainy. Previously, he served as deputy prosecutor for the Chernihiv region, and in October 2014 he was relieved of the position of head of the international legal aid department of the Attorney General’s Office.
According to him, around 140 former officials who were removed under the purge of power law have already submitted to the ECHR. And only the payment of 5 thousand euros of moral compensation plus compensation for the services of lawyers to 140 people who filed complaints will amount to around 1 million euros.
“I believe that the purge of the state of Ukraine will cost a total of at least two billion hryvnias, when all the people receive judicial decisions on satisfaction and pass the procedure by the ECHR,” he said.
Justice Minister Denis Malyuska (Photo: Vitaliy Nosach, RBK-Ukraine)
In total, around 900 surnames were added to the list of polished, but almost 4,000 more former officials who worked during the Yanukovych era indirectly felt the prohibitions of the purge of power law related to restricting access to public service.
Trusting the courts
While the authorities are hesitant to amend the law, Ukraine’s courts are actively considering purge cases. The Kiev District Administrative Court alone over the past year made more than 100 decisions on the reinstatement of officials who were dismissed in accordance with the law on purification of power.
Oleg Pidgainy himself in November 2019 received a positive verdict from the OASK on his reinstatement in the GPU, defending him on appeal and cassation. The authorities even formally complied with the court’s decision and reinstated the plaintiff in his post at the Attorney General’s Office. There, Pidgainy worked only a couple of months and in the summer of this year he was fired in connection with the reorganization.
“In principle, the authorities can say that they have de facto complied with the court’s decision, but in reality this is not the case. Speaking personally about me, then according to the material component (the court awarded Pidgainy around 2 million hryvnias salary for forced absenteeism, – ed.) I have no right to the state at this time, “he said.
This is more often done in other government agencies: they pay compensation for forced absenteeism, but they find tricks not to reinstate the enlightened ex-employee in the position. But there are exceptions that, nevertheless, give reason to speak of a selective approach to this subject.
For example, Sergei Grinevetsky, a candidate for the post of head of the Odessa Regional State Administration, managed in court to remove the restrictions on purging himself. He was banned from holding positions in government agencies due to his work as the first secretary of the CPSU district committee in 1990-91. A week after the positive decision, the court on November 27, Vladimir Zelensky, appointed Grinevetsky as head of the Regional State Administration. And the decision of the court itself came into effect even later, on December 14 after its consideration on appeal.
Officials from the Yanukovych era are being restored through the courts (Photo: Vitaliy Nosach, RBK-Ukraine)
After the abolition of the purge, the fate of former GPU prosecutor Oleg Kiper was also successful. In September 2019, he won the court for reinstatement, and already on July 27, 2020, he went to a promotion and received the post of prosecutor of Kiev.
His predecessor in this position, Sergei Yuldashev, was less lucky. In February of this year he achieved the abolition of the purge and on March 6 he was reinstated as a prosecutor in Kiev. But three weeks later, the new attorney general Irina Venediktova fired him, again based on the provisions of the law on purification of power. The OASK did not allow him to return to office.
Parliament believes that the decision of the Constitutional Court could stop the “leap in lustration”. “I think that the right option is for the KSU to finally solve this problem regarding the constitutionality of the law on the cleansing of power and, in my opinion, there are many reasons to recognize it as one that does not comply with the Constitution of Ukraine,” RBC-Ukraine said. Fyodor Venislavsky, presidential representative in the KSU, deputy of the Servant of the People.
After the decision of the Constitutional Court, Venislavsky is convinced, the parliament will be obliged to fill in the gaps in the legal regulation of the purge and make legislative changes. But at the moment, according to a mono-majority source, the issue of debugging is not discussed and is not among the priorities for the near future.
