Too often has this newspaper had to devote space to political violence in Ukraine. Yet after three revolutions in as many decades – starting with the 1990 Revolution on Granite, and through the 2004-2005 Orange and 2013-2014 Euro-Maidan revolutions – impunity reigns and the rule of law still hasn’t been institutionalized. This trend must be reversed for the country’s leaders to start regaining the public’s trust and continue building a normal state.
Ensuring equal justice is a pillar of a sustainably functioning democratic country. Its absence is the genesis, in one form or another, of numerous protests and has led to the aforementioned popular uprisings.
Public and expert opinion polls arrive at the same conclusion: justice is one of the most important national priorities that need to be addressed. And yet, as the preliminary results of post-Euro-Maidan revolution investigations have shown, nobody at the top goes to jail. Thus, justice and some kind of closure still remain elusive for the families of nearly 100 protesters killed in 2014.
The latest heinous example came when Kateryna Handzyuk died on November 4 of wounds from a savage acid attack perpetrated three months earlier. She had suffered third- and second-degree burns to 40 percent of her body, mostly around her face, neck, torso and hands. As an adviser to the mayor of the southern port city of Kherson, the 33-year-old former Euro-Maidan activist had started to call out police corruption and illicit activity of pro-Russian groups in her hometown.
As of November 13, six suspects are in pre-trial detention, two of whom are alleged co-conspirators in the lethal assault. Three suspects are behind bars, while the remaining three are under house arrest. As is the norm, not the exception, nobody has been named for ordering the hit. The latest suspect to be detained is Ihor Pavlovskyi, a former aide to National Deputy Mykola Palamarchuk of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc.
Human rights groups say that, since the beginning of last year, there have been 55 attacks on civil society activists, political whistleblowers and journalists. In 15 cases, the assailants used either firearms, or traumatic or bladed weapons. In addition to Ms. Handzyuk, five were killed: Odesa politician Oleh Mykhailyk, environmental activist Mykola Bychko of Kharkiv, and Kyiv lawyer Iryna Nozdrovska, who was investigating the death of her sister, Svitlana Sapatynska. Others have faced harassment, beatings or having a green antiseptic commonly used in Ukraine poured on their faces. No one has been named as a suspect for ordering the attacks. Those who carried out the attacks are identified in only 30 percent of the cases, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Weekly has covered such still-open cases without a denouement that resembles justice being served. Among the most high-profile is the mysterious vehicle crash that killed Rukh leader Vyacheslav Chornovil in 1999. Then there is the murder of muckraking journalist and Ukrayinska Pravda founder Heorhiy Gongadze the following year.
These unpunished attacks and killings are a “dirty little secret about Ukraine,” Adrian Karatnycky, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said recently. He also pointed out that not only does Ukraine still face an external enemy – Russia – but that it “also must stop its internal aggressors.”
What must be done?
President Poroshenko should stop throwing roadblocks in the way of completing the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Court, and he must ensure that other law enforcement institutions remain free of political intrusion to do their jobs. The same applies to Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who is appointed by the president. Mr. Lutsenko offered to resign after Ms. Handzyuk’s death, but not enough votes in Parliament, including from the president’s eponymous party, endorsed his dismissal. The truth is that Mr. Lutsenko who lacks a law degree, has failed, like his predecessors, to successfully prosecute high-profile crimes.
If such impunity continues, the country’s stability will be at risk and the next revolution may well be bloodier, because the latest post-Euro-Maidan leaders have thus far failed to deliver on the movement’s promises – one of which was to ensure justice for all. The stakes are too high, and society can wait no longer.