Ukrainian lawmakers have passed a law that equates one day in a pretrial detention center to two days in prison. The move is intended to spur the investigation process and marks the first step to civilizing Ukraine’s detention system.
Previously, suspects in Ukraine often languished behind bars without sentencing for years – and then would still face a full jail term if found guilty.
Passed on Nov. 26, the bill was drawn up by Nadiya Savchenko, a Ukrainian pilot who was kidnapped by pro-Russian separatists and is now being held in a Russian prison on charges of murdering two Russian journalists in the Donbas. She denies the charges, while Ukraine, the European Union and the U.S. maintain she is being extra-judiciously tried for political reasons.
The law – the first one drafted by Savchenko as a Batkivshyna party lawmaker –was passed with 263 votes. Most legislation in parliament requires a simple majority of at least 226 votes.
“The law will allow one day in a pretrial detention center to be equated to two days in prison. This will humanize the conditions of keeping suspects waiting for trial,” Andriy Kozhemyakin, the head of the parliamentary legislative activity committee, said on Nov 26.
Radical party leader Oleh Lyashko said that the corrupt Ukrainian legal system, and prosecutors in particular, often delay the pre-trial investigation process for several years.
“A man who didn’t actually commit a crime but who crossed a law enforcement officer somehow can be kept in a cage for five to seven years in some cases, until the investigation finds him innocent,” said Lyashko.
Leonid Yemets, the deputy head of the judicial policy committee in the Rada and the co-author of Savchenko’s law, said that by passing this legislation, the parliament is making the first step toward civilizing the prisoner detention system in Ukraine.
“Even criminals have rights,” Yemets said.
Yuri Lutsenko, a Petro Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker who spent a year in a Ukrainian pretrial detention center due to negligence in an investigation and was released in 2013, said that the conditions of detention are inhumane.
“In detention centers (conditions) are even worse than in jail. You just sit behind closed bars with restrictions on movement and contact with your relatives. Only your lawyer can talk to you,” Lutsenko recalled.
Criminal defense lawyer Yuri Madorskiy confirmed Lutsenko’s description.
Suspects kept in pre-trial custody are not allowed to walk outside, to go out for sports or to have a hobby like prisoners in jail are. They even need to ask for special permission to read books or play musical instruments, he said.
“For example the famous Ukrainian accordion player Ihor Zavadskiy, who has sat behind bars at the Lukyanivsky detention center in Kyiv for three years, waiting for court hearings on charges of child sexual abuse, is still not allowed to play the accordion,” Madorskiy said.
The maximum term for keeping a suspect in a detention center is six months under Ukrainian law, he said.
Madorskiy said only dangerous special criminals would not see any difference. “Anyway, they are sentenced to sit in a closed cage for ages. So what’s the difference where that cage is – in a detention center or in a high-security prison?” said the lawyer.
Nadiya Savchenko’s lawyer submitted her bill to parliament, numbered3413, on Nov 9.
Kyiv Post staff writer Veronika Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]
