Ultra-nationalist party leader waits for court to decide whether he will be granted parliamentary immunity
Jailed ultra‑nationalist party leader Andry Shkil remained behind bars more than a week after he won a parliamentary seat and immunity from prosecution in last month’s elections.
Law enforcement officials said Shkil’s fate was in the hands of a judge, which prompted opposition figures to accuse the government of stalling his release.
Shkil, the leader of UNA‑UNSO, was arrested in March 2001 for taking part in violent anti‑presidential street protests. He won a parliamentary seat in a single‑mandate race in Lviv Oblast on March 31. Shkil, who remained in jail throughout the election campaign, received 25.6 percent of the vote in his district, almost 6,000 more votes than his closest rival, Leonid Tkachuk, a candidate from the pro‑presidential For a United Ukraine bloc.
Parliamentary deputy and ombudsman Nina Karpacheva said April 10 that Shkil should have been released on April 2 when he was declared the winner by a district electoral commission. Karpachova said Shkil won retroactive immunity along with the deputy’s pin.
In a 1999 decision the Constitutional Court ruled that parliamentary immunity comes into force immediately after a district election commission declares the winner in first‑past‑the‑post constituency races.
Lawyers at the Justice Ministry were of a different opinion. Oleksy Konoval, chief legal expert at the Justice Ministry, said Shkil could be released only by Ivan Volyk, the who was assigned Shkil criminal case last year.
Dmytro Valyura, a judge in Kyiv’s Holosiyivsky district court, said April 9 Volyk had fallen ill and was hospitalized. Valyura failed to provide details.
Opposition leaders, however, appeared to have little faith in Valyura’s explanation.
Oleksandr Turchynov, a leader of the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, said government officials were merely looking for a way to void Shkil’s victory.
Shkil’s victory was contested by his closest rival, Tkachuk, who claimed the UNA‑UNSO leader won the race due to widespread violations. The Lviv Appeals Court, however, ruled on April 10 that Tkachuk’s complaint was groundless. In its decision, the court said observers in the district failed to document a single violation.
