The High Administrative Court of Ukraine has postponed until February 16 the consideration of a lawsuit by lawyer Volodymyr Olentsevych seeking to overturn third Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko's order to confer the Hero of Ukraine title to Roman Shukhevych, the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
This decision was made due to the absence of one of the members of the panel of judges.
As reported, on October 2, 2007 Yuschenko issued a decree awarding the Hero of Ukraine title to Shukhevych.
In October 2009, lawyer Volodymyr Olentsevych, on behalf of Doctor of Medical Sciences Anatoliy Solovyov, filed a lawsuit in Donetsk Circuit Administrative Court to declare the decree on awarding Shukhevych the Hero of Ukraine title as illegal and to cancel it.
On April 21, 2010, Donetsk Circuit Administrative Court invalidated Yuschenko’s decree on awarding the Hero of Ukraine title to Shukhevych.
The court ruled that the president had had no right to confer this title to Shukhevych, because he had died in 1950 and therefore he had not lived on the territory of independent Ukraine (after 1991). Consequently, Shukhevych was not a Ukrainian citizen, and this title could not be awarded to him. The court said that under the Ukrainian legislation the title of Hero of Ukraine can be conferred only to a citizen of Ukraine.
