You're reading: Amnesty law might help officials evade punishment, but will do little for protesters

The recently approved law that was meant to free participants of peaceful mass demonstrations from prosecution, might instead help instigators of attacks and will not do much to help protesters, some lawyers fear.

The law, called “On removal of
negative consequences and prevention of prosecution and punishment of
persons about events that took place during mass actions,” was signed
by the president on Dec. 23, and will come into effect the day after
it’s officially published.

It was authored by five deputies
representing both the pro-government majority and the opposition,
and approved by 339 lawmakers in the 450-seat parliament on Dec. 19.

The bill’s five articles stipulate that protesters between Nov. 21 and the day the
law comes into effect will be free from any prosecution, all
administrative cases have to be closed and bans new ones from
being opened. Moreover, all criminal sentences are to be annulled within
10 days after the law comes into effect.

Both pro-presidential deputies and
the opposition hailed the law for putting a stop to the prosecution
of protesters.

“The approval of this law… is a
very important victory,” Pavlo Petrenko, a Batkivshchyna lawmaker
and its co-author, said in a statement. “Millions of Ukrainians demanded this law, and we approved it.”

But independent lawyers are less
optimistic about its use, saying instead that the law is poorly
written, is missing definitions for most terms and can be easily
applied to free law enforcers from prosecution, as well as officials who gave orders on Nov. 30 to disperse a peaceful
demonstration, as well as to attack peaceful gatherings on Dec. 1 and
Dec. 10.

“It contains no definition of who the
participant of a protest is,” says Valentyna Telychenko, a
prominent Kyiv lawyer. “This means that courts are free to
interpret, and I have no doubt that law enforcers will be interpreted
as participants of the mass actions.”

She said that the law will not help the
protesters much, either.
Criminal cases were started
against 12 people in the wake of the Dec. 1 events in Ukraine, when
massive clashes took place near the president’s headquarters,
according to Amnesty International, a human rights watchdog. About 50
police officers and over 100 protesters received injuries, including
dozens of journalists.

Four of the protesters were still in
jail when Verkhovna Rada voted for the law. Others
received administrative punishments such as fines.

“The new law does not cancel the
existing court rulings,” says Telychenko. She said the law might
help the few that are still under arrest or investigation. But, on
the flip side, it might also help those who instigated violence.

On Dec. 13 a criminal investigation was started against four individuals who allegedly gave orders to
disperse the crowd. Based on this investigation, Kyiv City
Administrator Oleksandr Popov, Deputy Head of the National Security
Council Volodymyr Sivkovych and two senior police officials Valeriy
Koryak and Petro Fedchuk were given notices of suspicion General
Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka said on Dec. 20 in parliament.

Pshonka said they are suspected of abusing their authority when they gave orders for the riot police officers
to attack protesters on Nov. 30. They were also suspended from their
jobs.

But Telychenko says that the new law
might exonerate them from punishment because they might also be
interpreted as participants of mass demonstrations because neither
this law, nor others give a clear definition of who should be
considered a participant of mass demonstrations.

“They are all participants, they
simply had different roles,” she says. “So, Sivkovych will walk
free and Popov will be given some sort of a compensation for his
troubles.”

Moreover, none of the riot police
officers who attacked demonstrators are likely to be punished,
Telycnehko predicts, because it requires concrete proof of individual
police officers using violence against particular individuals.
Moreover, the collection of video and audio evidence is supposed to
be sanctioned by court – and none of the existing media footage
fits the description, Telychenko said.

International human rights watchdog
Amnesty International warned the Ukrainian authorities against using
this law to allow officials to walk free.

“The
passing of this law may help to stem
public unrest in Ukraine, but
the Ukrainian authorities cannot exonerate themselves for their

responsibility for human rights violations that have taken place
since 21 November. Amnesty
International calls for a thorough
investigation into all human rights violations that have taken
place
during EuroMaydan,” the organization said in its Dec. 23 statement.