Vitaly Tytych – reformer of the week
Vitaliy Tytych, a lawyer for the relatives of slain EuroMaidan demonstrators, on Oct. 24 said that it would be impossible to convict ex-President Viktor Yanukovych and his allies due to Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s recent restructuring of his agency.
Lutsenko has effectively destroyed a department led by prosecutor Serhiy Horbatiuk, which was in charge of Yanukovych-era cases, by transferring most of its cases to another department and stripping Horbatiuk’s unit of its resources, according to Tytych, other lawyers of EuroMaidan protesters, and their families. The department has actively cooperated with the relatives of the murdered protesters and their lawyers, and they have repeatedly praised Horbatiuk’s performance.
Moreover, Lutsenko’s plans to send Yanukovych-era graft cases and the investigation into the murders of more than 100 EuroMaidan protesters to trial by the end of this year will also make convictions unlikely, due to legal obstacles, Tytych said.
Horbatiuk has argued that the current law on trials in absentia contradicts both Ukrainian and international law and should be changed. As a result of the contradictions, any convictions in the Yanukovych-era cases will be cancelled by the European Court of Human Rights, he says.
Artur Yemelyanov – anti-reformer of the week
The Prosecutor General’s Office earlier this month filed a notice of suspicion for Artur Yemelyanov, an incumbent judge and ex-deputy chairman of the Supreme Economic Court.
Prosecutors also filed a notice of suspicion for Viktor Tatkov, an ex-judge and former chairman of the Supreme Economic Court, who was fired by parliament in September under the lustration law on dismissing top officials who served ex-President Viktor Yanukovych.
Yemelyanov and Tatkov were charged with illegally interfering with lower-level judges’ work to make them pass unlawful rulings.
Assets worth 13 million Swiss francs controlled by Yemelyanov’s wife were frozen in Liechtenstein last year, but were unfrozen in July 2016 due to Ukrainian prosecutors’ failure to provide information on Yemelyanov’s alleged crimes.
According to Yemelyanov’s declaration for 2014, he owned 13 apartments with a combined area of 2,000 square meters.
Tatkov and Yemelyanov have also been accused of building during Yanukovych’s time in office a large-scale corruption network to extort money from, and raid businesses. They deny the accusations.
