Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeals has declared unlawful former Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko's decree of October 12, 2007 to award the Hero of Ukraine title to Roman Shukhevych, the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
An Interfax-Ukraine reporter said that the court had passed such a ruling on Wednesday.
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.
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 cancel it.
"The court considered the lawsuit and refused to satisfy it under completely far-fetched grounds… I lodged a cassation appeal, and now the time has finally come for its consideration," Olentsevych said.
On April 2, 2010, Donetsk Circuit Administrative Court, on the basis of the suit filed by Olentsevych, cancelled Yuschenko’s decree on awarding the Hero of Ukraine title to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, as Bandera was not a citizen of Ukraine.
