You're reading: Higher Administrative Court rules Bandera’s Hero of Ukraine title illegal

The Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine has upheld a ruling of Donetsk Circuit Court dated April 2, 2010 and a ruling of Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeals dated June 23, 2010 that declared illegal an order of Third Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko dated January 20, 2010 conferring the Hero of Ukraine title to the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-UPA), Stepan Bandera.

The board of the court threw out appeals by Yuschenko and Yuriy Shukhevych, the son of the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, Roman Shukhevych, and Bandera’s grandson Stepan Bandera on conferring the Hero of Ukraine title to Bandera.

On January 22, 2010, third Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko conferred the Hero of Ukrainian title to Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN).

On April 2, Donetsk Circuit Administrative Court declared unlawful and subject to the repeal of Yuschenko’s decree conferring the Hero of Ukraine title to Bandera. The plaintiff in the case – lawyer Volodymyr Olentsevych said that under Ukrainian legislation, the title of Hero of Ukraine can be conferred only to a citizen of Ukraine. According to him, Bandera is was never a citizen of Ukraine, since he died in 1959 before Ukraine gained independence in 1991.