Former Justice Minister Yevhen Korniychuk, whose pre-trial restriction has been replaced with a written promise not to leave Kyiv, said he regrets that over the years of independence the legislation on penal system has been only cosmetically amended.
"The main lesson I learned in their [pretrial detention center] was that I myself am at fault. I understood I hadn’t done enough at the ministry, where among other things, I was the head of the department on the execution of punishments. Then we at the ministry initially had the wrong message – we introduced cosmetic amendments to the legislation, but we should have changed the whole penal system! Legislation from 1937 is operating in relation to prisoners! It should have been changed long ago," he said in an interview with the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper published on Tuesday.
Korniychuk also confirmed information that in the pretrial detention center he was detained in the same section as former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko.
Korniychuk noted that this section has the maximum level of security. According to him, such a level of security is applied to people who are serving life imprisonment.
When asked if former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko would be imprisoned, Korniychuk said: "It is difficult to say. The case of Tymoshenko is a political and a legal issue. It is not a purely legal one. You understand that this issue is linked to the fact how the current government is ready to see itself over some period of time. They should understand that they won’t always be in power."
Korniychuk was detained by the Prosecutor General’s Office on Dec. 24, 2010. On Dec. 30, the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv ordered him to be taken into custody for two months as a pre-trial restriction. He was then transferred to a Kyiv pre-trial detention center.
On Feb. 15, the investigator changed the pre-trial restrictions on Korniychuk, from arrest to a written promise not to leave Kyiv.
According to the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office, charges had been brought against Korniychuk under part three of Article 365, which addresses the abuse of office.
