You're reading: Court to continue hearing Saakashvili’s citizenship lawsuit against Poroshenko on April 13

The Cassation Administrative Court of the Supreme Court of Ukraine will continue hearing on April 13 a lawsuit filed by former Georgian President and leader of the Movement of New Forces party Mikheil Saakashvili against Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko regarding the illegality of his decree stripping Saakashvili of Ukrainian citizenship.

According to an Interfax-Ukraine reporter, at a meeting on March 23, the court considered a number of petitions from Saakashvili’s lawyers.

In particular, the defense team requested the invitation to court as witnesses the members of the presidential citizenship commission, who decided in 2015 to grant Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship and recommended in 2017 that he be deprived of citizenship. Lawyers also asked the court to interrogate employees of the State Migration Service of Ukraine who dealt with the preparation of documents on the basis of which the protocol of the citizenship commission regarding Saakashvili was drafted. In addition, lawyers asked for Poroshenko and Saakashvili to be summoned to court as witnesses in this case.

Of these petitions, the panel of the Cassation Administrative Court satisfied only those that concerned three State Migration Service (SMS) officials, among them an employee of the SMS department for citizenship issues, an employee of the SMS directorate in Kyiv and an employee of the Shevchenkivske district directorate of the SMS in Kyiv.

At its next session on April 13, the court is to hear the three witnesses and start examining the evidence provided by the parties to the trial, after which, according to the procedure, the court must make its decision on this case.