ANALYSIS

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman in tight spot

by Lily Hyde
RFE/RL Newsline

KYIV - Hopes were high last year when Ukraine established the office of ombudsman, charged with monitoring, protecting and upholding the rights of individuals.

But those hopes have since been dashed, with some citizens saying the office seems remote and unhelpful. And, employees at the office say they lack the resources to provide much help.

The problems come at a critical stage for Ukraine's international relations. The Council of Europe is threatening measures if the country does not introduce improved human rights legislation. While the ombudsman's office is only a small part of Ukraine's human rights activities, improvements in the way it functions would clearly help the country's image abroad.

Under existing laws, the office's powers are fairly clear. Citizens or residents can address complaints to the ombudsman, who can then present their case to the authorities or the Constitutional Court. The ombudsman also has the right to unrestricted access to any public official, including the president, and is free to inspect any government institution, such as prisons.

The problem is that the law provides the ombudsman with only limited enforcement authority and does not penalize those who obstruct human rights inquiries. Although the law states that the executive branch is to draw up and submit amendments necessary for Ukrainian legislation to comply with the mandate of the ombudsman, this has yet to be done.

According to Nina Karpachova, whom the Verkhovna Rada elected as ombudsman last year, her office has taken over that task, proposing amendments to some 70 laws to allow her to operate as stipulated by the ombudsman law. However, those amendments have not been enacted.

One of Ms. Karpachova's aides, Vasilii Radko, told RFE/RL that the failure to enact the amendments means that the office can do little to address the concerns of those who petition it. "We made our changes to 70 laws because the rights of the plenipotentiary Secretariat aren't written [into legislation]," he noted. "Until that's done it's difficult for people and for us. We need such an institution with plenipotentiary power. People appeal to us, with their misfortunes, as a last resort. Of course we want our help to be more functional, but at this stage we can only talk to people and help if we can."

There are other shortcomings. Last year, the office, which includes a staff of 30 squeezed into a few small rooms, was not included in the budget, so the employees depended solely on contributions from the foreign diplomatic community. Mr. Radko said part of the problem is that a large percentage of those who come to the office have complaints that are not within its competence.

For example, a former collective farm head from the Khmelnytskyi region claimed he was unfairly convicted of alleged abuse of his position because he had installed a telephone at work and tried to privatize the farmland. The ombudsman applied to the regional prosecutor, who eventually gave a negative answer, whereupon the ombudsman turned to the procurator-general to review the case. Mr. Radko can only explain to the outraged farmer that the process takes a very long time and the ombudsman can do nothing more for him.

Citizens, however, can take their pleas a step further than the ombudsman. Last year 13,000 Ukrainians applied to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, according to Petro Rabinovich, a human rights expert from Lviv University. Only 200 cases were accepted. The problem, said Mr. Rabinovich, is that people do not know how to formulate their complaints or indeed what their rights are under the European Convention of Human Rights.

In theory, those rights should be the same as they are at home, as Ukraine ratified the convention in 1997. One of the jobs of the ombudsman is to oversee Ukraine's adherence to the convention. But in the year since Ms. Karpachova was appointed, Ukraine's human rights record has been criticized by a Council of Europe report released at the end of 1998 and a U.S. State Department report released in February of this year.

Both reports sharply criticized the country for what they described as an unreformed prison system, a corrupt judiciary and the repression of the free press. The Council of Europe report also cited Kyiv's failure to abolish the death penalty. In May President Leonid Kuchma was named the world's sixth-worst enemy of the free press by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Official response to the criticism so far has been angry and defiant. Mr. Kuchma has threatened to sue the authors of the New York report. Some national deputies have said Ukraine cannot impose Western standards on human rights because of its weak economy, arguing that international bodies have no right to criticize the country.

Lily Hyde is an RFE/RL correspondent based in Kyiv.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 20, 1999, No. 25, Vol. LXVII

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