A Council of Europe committee on the Honoring of Obligations and Commitments on Nov. 30 asked the Council of Europe to exclude Ukraine from its ranks by June 1999 or earlier. The Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly groups 40 European states on questions of human rights, democracy and rule of law. Membership in the body is a prerequisite for joining the European Union.
Broadly, the committee states that Ukraine did not abolish the death penalty by Nov. 9, as previous agreed; did not ratify the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages; failed to pass legislation on local self-government conforming to the European Charter of Local Self-Government; and failed to adopt new civil and criminal codes.
Some of the committee's criticisms are devastating, especially its criticism of the lack of separation of the legal system from the control of the presidential administration:
'There is continuing control by the executive and a determination to seek and hold political power, sometimes illegally, which may unduly influence the next presidential election.'
The committee probably was referring to the executive's use of the courts and election commissions to deny opposition candidates political seats.
At the level of parliament, the most prominent case took place in Kyiv. The candidate Serhy Holovaty, the former justice minister who fell out with the president for a number of reasons – one of them being the failure by the president to live up to his commitment to abolish capital punishment, was a victim of this process. A local court was used by the executive in an effort to strip Holovaty of his seat in parliament.
Another case of administrative interference in elections can be illustrated by the case of Yury Orobets, Holovaty's political ally. He has been twice denied his seat in parliament by courts and the election commission, despite twice winning his seat handsomely. Soon there will be a third election in the same constituency, and it would not be surprising if this time someone else wins.
The various Cabinet ministries also did not escape criticism. The Interior Ministry was reprimanded for hiring out military personnel for private purposes. That is a reference to the hiring out of Interior Ministry troops as security guards and even as laborers to private companies. Regular soldiers were used by the city-owned company KyivMiskBud to rebuild Khreshchatyk last summer.
The Interior Ministry, which controls the police, also was criticized for transferring the penitentiary system to the Justice Ministry.
The executive arm of the government was also criticized for 'non-implementation of decisions of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court.'
The Prosecutor General's office was severely reprimanded for forcing media outlets to close down when they came under investigation. The examples are legendary. The shutting down of the Pravda Ukrainy newspaper on the eve of the March 1998 parliamentary elections, and recent measures against Kievskiye Vedomosti, My and Polityka are just some of the examples of executive abuse of power against the mass media.
The Council of Europe committee was also upset with the rise of corruption in the government elite. It made no specific allegations. But it could refer to the Prosecutor's Office practice of investigating only opponents of the president for corruption, such as the Hromada parliamentary deputies Pavlo Lazarenko, Mykola Agafanov, Yulia Tymoshenko and her jailed assistant Mykola Sykulsky.
However, corruption charges against the president's political allies are not investigated. Hryhory Omelchenko and Anatoly Yermak made detailed corruption charges against their fellow parliament deputy Oleksandr Volkov, a former presidential adviser and president of the TV station Gravis. The prosecutor general has not made any public statements on those allegations. Neither has he responded to the charges made by his predecessor, Oleh Lytvak, who after the detention of the deputy and former Prime Minister Lazarenko in Switzerland said there were outstanding allegations of corruption against serving government ministers.
Ukraine's parliament also felt the weight of the Council of Europe's criticism:
'The legislative process has been slow and only a few of the fundamental legislative texts listed in Opinion No. 190 have been adopted. New civil and criminal codes have hardly been examined by the Verhovna Rada and there has been very little progress in passing legislation on reform of the judiciary and the Prosecutor's Office.'
Four particular criticisms were made. Legislation on local self-government conforming to the principles of the European Charter of Local Self-Government has not been passed. The committee referred to the president's direct rule over Kyiv and Sevastopol, which does not even conform to the Constitution of Ukraine. Also, it had in the past expressed concern over the central government's interference in the mayoral elections in Kyiv and Odessa this year.
The committee's attack on the parliament for not adopting the Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea might be on shaky grounds. The Crimean Tatar leader and deputy, Mustafa Dzhemilev, joined in this week's defeat of the adoption of the constitution on the grounds that it discriminated against the Tatars.
At first sight the committee's demand that 'The Crimean Tatars with permanent residence in Crimea should be granted the right to vote before the presidential election in October 1999' does not conform to the laws practiced by other members of the Council of Europe. Residents throughout the European Union are not allowed to vote if they are not citizens of the country or another EU country.
However, given that the Crimean Tartars were deported en masse from the Crimea by Stalin, they and their descendents should be offered citizenship by right. Otherwise it is compounding one injustice with another.
The committee's strongest criticism is levied on Ukraine's refusal to honor its commitments to abolish capital punishment. The committee accused the government of executing 212 persons between Nov. 9, 1995 and March 11, 1997, just 'according to official sources.' That was after Ukraine committed itself not to execute any more people after Nov. 9, 1995. The committee called upon the parliament to ratify Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (banning the death penalty) 'as a matter of priority.'
The statement by President Leonid Kuchma on the day the trial began against the man accused of being the world's greatest mass murderer, Anatoly Onopriyenko, was an outstanding example of interference in the due process of law. The president called for his execution. That was a blatant interference by the executive arm of the government into the judicial process. A remark like that shows contempt for the due process of law and the commitment made to the Council of Europe to abolish the death penalty.
The committee recommended that if another execution takes place, then Ukraine should be immediately banned from the Council of Europe. The next victim for execution could be the suspect Onopriyenko.
In a new ominous development, the parliament is considering a new penal code that does not refer to the abolishment of the death penalty.
The committee praised Ukraine for achieving 'settlement of international disputes by peaceful means and has avoided large-scale social unrest and civil war.' Considering the civil violence on or near its borders – from Moldova to Chechnya and Yugoslavia – that is no mean achievement.
Ukraine's relatively peaceful transformation without any ethnic violence makes all other criticisms against it by the committee pale in insignificance. That includes executions of prisoners, which are regularly carried out in many states in the United States. However, Ukraine must stop this inhuman punishment.
What Ukraine needs is a widely based citizens' organization to lobby all wings of the state to implement its obligations and commitments to the Council of Europe. That pressure should be on every political party and candidate for office.
Kuchma's statement in Budapest in October that the European Union is discriminating against Ukraine by not making it even an associate member is hot air. The blast would be more credible had Ukraine met all its obligations and commitments to the Council of Europe.
Without such a citizens' movement, it is inevitable that Ukraine will be kicked out of the Council of Europe when its parliament assembly meets in June 1999. The citizens will not only be fighting for Ukraine to be part of the civilized world, but for their own rights.
Jaroslav Koshiw is deputy editor of the Kyiv Post.
