OfficialWire: Ukrainian legal nihilism
Tomorrow the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych was meant to travel to Brussels for an important meeting with the European Union. Not anymore. Instead, his hosts declined the pleasure of his company for the time being, upset over the foregone conclusion of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s trial. The general impression is that Yanukovych has shot himself in the foot with the conviction of Tymoshenko on charges of “abuse of power.” The harsh seven-year prison sentence handed down this past week not only severely damages the country’s reputation, but serves also as a measurement of just how bad it can be to stoop to the level of Russian legal nihilism. The comparison that immediately comes to mind is that of the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was also taken down by selective justice (in fact, one of his lawyers recently died from mistreatment in prison), two convictions on totally incoherent and groundless cases by the prosecution, and the wholesale theft by the government of the country’s largest company, Yukos. Read full text here.