Lviv mayor on hunger strike to protest "insolence" of judges (06/26/05)

Lviv mayor on hunger strike to protest "insolence" of judges

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Four days into the Lviv mayor's hunger strike, the Ukrainian government dispatched a working group to meet with Liubomyr Buniak as well as his enemies in the city's judiciary, including the head of the oblast appellate court.

Mayor Buniak launched a hunger strike on June 8 to protest what he deemed "the insolence of judges" who have allegedly swiped real estate for themselves and waged personal grudges against him in their rulings.

He said he would cease his hunger strike only when the government sent a committee to investigate the rulings, including all those against him.

"We identified the problems related to judicial procedure in Lviv, calmly chatted, outlined a series of questions and everyone expressed their opinion," said Oleksander Volkov, a Ukrainian Supreme Court judge who traveled to Lviv as part of an eight-person working group that included representatives of the Presidential Secretariat, the Cabinet of Ministers Secretariat, the Justice Ministry and the Procurator General's Office.

"We became familiar with matters and documents, led a series of meetings and reached compromises," Mr. Volkov said.

While plenty of dialogue occurred during the four days of investigating, it remains unclear whether any concrete reforms or resolutions will emerge from the conflict, other than publicity for Mr. Buniak's grievances against his city's judges.

Mr. Volkov empathized with the mayor and said the nation's judicial system needs reform at a June 15 press conference summarizing the working group's visit.

At the same time, he noted that the group's ability to investigate the illegality of the rulings or resolve the conflicts was rather limited, considering that the ultimate authority lies with the courts themselves and that citizens have the option to appeal rulings, an option Mr. Buniak had declined in numerous cases.

"We explained to the mayor that just because someone is engaged in a hunger strike or not, we can't overturn a court's decision," Mr. Volkov said.

Working group members explained the appeals process to Mr. Buniak, Mr. Volkov said. If he submits the necessary appeals, if a review takes place and if the courts overturn the judicial decisions, only then can the working group examine any alleged illegalities, he said.

"But at the moment, what can I tell the judge?" Mr. Volkov said. "He will justifiably reply that here's the ruling, it's binding and it hasn't been appealed."

If a court hasn't appealed or overturned a decision, then it's not possible for the working group to decide whether a judge made a ruling illegally, Mr. Volkov said, referring to Mr. Buniak's request.

Mr. Volkov also stressed that if Mayor Buniak is dissatisfied with Lviv's appellate judges, he could appeal his cases all the way up to the European courts.

"We explained the procedures to the mayor's lawyers of how to properly appeal court rulings," Mr. Volkov said. "We recommend that the judicial and municipal authorities find a compromise and work out the disputable issues," Mr. Volkov said.

It's possible the working group would not have made it out to Lviv without the help of Mr. Buniak's political circle.

On June 10, three days into the strike, Mr. Buniak's assistants announced they would cease relations with the executive organs of the national government until they responded accordingly to the mayor's demands, according to Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, a weekly analytical newspaper.

If the government issued no response to Mr. Buniak's demands, his assistants stated that they'd reserve the right to "turn to the city's citizens with the request that they support the mayor's demands through disobedience," Dzerkalo Tyzhnia reported.

The first members of the working group arrived in Lviv two days later, on June 12, at which point Mr. Buniak was able to call off his hunger strike.

On June 13, State Secretary Oleksander Zinchenko issued the official order authorizing the working group to investigate the situation and make recommendations.

Mr. Buniak's major grievances were the judgment awarding city teachers $900,000 in unpaid salaries, the judgment of $140,000 to the Sukhorskyi brothers to compensate for construction costs of their Taras Shevchenko monument and the ruling that he had offended the honor and dignity of two national deputies, thereby owing them $10,000 each.

Mr. Buniak recently accused city judges of placing properties such as apartments under government arrest and then keeping the real estate for themselves or giving it to other judges.

After four days of his hunger strike, Mr. Buniak was brought to a hospital and diagnosed with gastric hemorrhaging, according to Vysokyi Zamok, Lviv's largest daily newspaper.

His body had reached a state of decomposition, in which it began feeding off its own protein sources, the newspaper reported. As a result of his hunger strike, Mr. Buniak lost five kilograms of weight, or about 11 pounds.

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