STRASBOURG - Ukraine, together with the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, will work through ways to fulfill the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, which found that the arrest of former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko violated his human rights.
“As regards Lutsenko’s complaint concerning his pretrial detention, the ruling was made and it already has the status of a final one,” Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe Mykola Tochytsky said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He said that in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights, the issue of the execution of the ECHR’s judgments are considered by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
“At its special meetings, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, in cooperation with the Ukrainian delegation, will be working on the ways to properly execute this ruling,” Tochytsky said.
As reported, July 3, 2012, the ECHR issued a ruling declaring that the arrest of Lutsenko was a violation of his human rights. Moreover, the court ordered the Ukrainian government to pay EUR 15,000 to the ex-minister as compensation for moral damages.
On October 1, 2012, the government filed a motion to review the ECHR decision in the Lutsenko versus Ukraine case. The Ukrainian government referred to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms dated November 4, 1950 in the motion.
On November 20, the European Court upheld its ruling on Lutsenko’s case by rejecting the Ukrainian government’s motion.
Lutsenko was arrested on December 26, 2010. He was held at Kyiv’s pre-trial detention center. The ex-minister’s defense team appealed against Lutsenko’s arrest to the ECHR.
Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court found Lutsenko guilty of a number of counts of abuse of office and sentenced him to four years in prison on February 27, 2012. On August 31, 2012, he was taken to the penitentiary in Chernihiv region.
Lutsenko was also charged with the extension of an investigative case concerning Valentyn Davydenko, the driver of former SBU First Deputy Chief Volodymyr Satsiuk, as part of an investigation into the poisoning of then presidential candidate Viktor Yuschenko on August 17, 2012 by Pechersky Court. The court sentenced Lutsenko to two years in prison.
