You're reading: Same judge presides in Lutsenko, Tymoshenko cases in European Court

BRUSSELS – Judge Dean Spielmann from Luxembourg is presiding over a sitting of the European Court of Human Rights, which is considering a complaint by former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko.

The same judge presided over the hearing of a complaint by former Interior Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko on April 17, 2012.

A total of eight judges are involved in the hearing, including the presiding judge.

These are Mark Villiger of Liechtenstein, Karel Jungwiert of the
Czech Republic, Bostjan Zupancic of Slovenia, Hanna Yudkivska of
Ukraine, Angelika Nussberger of Germany, Andre Potocki of France and Ann
Power-Ford of Ireland.

Ukraine’s government commissioner for the ECHR Nazar Kulchytsky and
Tymoshenko’s defense counsels, Valentyna Telychenko and Serhiy Vlasenko,
have already spoken before the court. A question and answer session
followed.

As reported, Tymoshenko claims that her detention was politically
motivated, that no court hearings were held into whether her custody at a
Kyiv detention facility was lawful, that her living conditions at the
detention center were inappropriate, that she was not given appropriate
medical attention and that she remained under round-the-clock
observation at a clinic in Kharkiv.

Defense lawyers of Lutsenko had earlier appealed the ex-minister’s
arrest with the ECHR, and the ECHR said the arrest on July 3 violated
Lutsenko’s rights and obliged Ukraine to pay 15,000 euros in damages to
Lutsenko.