PACE monitor's recommendation may result in Ukraine's suspension from Council of Europe (04/15/01)

PACE monitor's recommendation may result in Ukraine's suspension from Council of Europe

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The Council of Europe (CE) could suspend Ukraine's membership in late April because of an unexpected recommendation by a monitoring committee of its Parliamentary Assembly.

If the CE committee of ministers supports the recommendation, Ukraine could become the first member-state in the 51-year history of the human rights assembly of European parliamentarians to have its membership suspended. Only Russia, which was threatened with similar action two years ago over its role in Chechnya, has come this close to a formal sanction.

On April 5 the committee voted for the recommendation based on a report by Hanne Severinsen, a rapporteur charged with reviewing the situation in Ukraine to determine whether the country has fulfilled obligations it undertook when it became a member in 1995.

Ms. Severinsen said the monitoring committee's decision is based on information about civil rights infractions documented during meetings with Ukrainian officials and citizens during her visit to Kyiv at the end of March.

"It concerns misuse of authority, particularly oppression of freedom of speech and oppression of the opposition," explained Ms. Severinsen in an interview with Radio Liberty, according to Interfax-Ukraine. She said the monitoring committee resolution is particularly critical of the Ukrainian president.

Her report includes a lengthy list of complaints against Ukrainian authorities, including possible complicity in murder, harassment and violence against journalists, the unacceptably long delay in the Gongadze investigation and serious questions on the impartiality of the investigation.

Ms. Severinsen explained that, in examining how Ukraine is proceeding with its obligations, she took into consideration legislation Ukraine is developing to bring its laws into line with Western standards, but that her report encompasses a wider breadth of issues.

"For some reason there is an opinion in Ukraine that we are concerned about the laws only," said Ms. Severinsen.

Indeed, Ukraine's lawmakers and even President Leonid Kuchma put the emphasis on matters other than human and civil rights in explaining the PACE monitoring committee recommendation.

Mr. Kuchma told reporters on April 10 in Odesa, where he was on a working trip, that the matter is an inter-parliamentary issue and questions should be directed to Ukrainian lawmakers. Nonetheless, he called the action by the PACE monitoring committee "pressure from certain Ukrainian deputies."

He named National Deputy Serhii Holovatyi, a leading member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE as well as an organizer of the anti-Kuchma opposition in Ukraine, as the person responsible for convincing the monitoring committee to issue such a scathing recommendation. Mr. Holovatyi declined to comment for this report.

President Kuchma called on national deputies to stop dragging their feet on approving a normative foundation for the country and approve the various legal codes. "This concerns Ukraine's prestige and its image abroad," said the president.

Ukrainian lawmakers expressed surprise that Ms. Severinsen would lead the monitoring committee to call for suspension on the same day the Verkhovna Rada was passing a monumental new Criminal Code and preparing for a final reading of new codes on criminal and civil procedure.

Viktor Medvedchuk, the first vice-chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, called the action "radical," but maintained that the Ukrainian Parliament would continue to strive to meet its obligations before PACE.

National Deputy Yurii Karmazyn, chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Corruption and Organized Crime, also took issue with the decision.

"Ukraine has just begun to enter the European jurisprudence system. It is a bit early to be preparing to expel it," he explained.

Meanwhile, the chief justice of Ukraine's Supreme Court, Vitalii Boiko, asserted that, "to a great extent we are fulfilling our obligations."

Ms. Severinsen, who compiled her report based on a three-day visit to Ukraine in the last days of March, which included a meeting with the recently jailed and now released former Vice Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and people associated with the Gongadze affair and the tape scandal, said it is possible that the CE committee of ministers could reject the recommendation of her committee in favor of a strong admonishment.

| Home Page |