You're reading: LGBT activist sues Ukraine in European Court of Human Rights

Gay activist Bogdan Globa has taken his fight for equality and justice in Ukraine all the way to the European Court of Human Rights.

Last fall Globa filed a lawsuit against his home country, citing violations of the European Convention on Human Rights by Ukrainian courts. Four months later he received a response from the European Court, saying it was prepared to take up Globa’s case.

The case goes back to 2014, when Globa was denied membership of the Democratic Alliance political party because of “ideological differences,” as then-party deputy head Victor Andrusiv put it in private online correspondence Globa shared with the Kyiv Post.

Andrusiv left the party later in 2014 because of internal conflicts in the Democratic Alliance. Globa emigrated to the United States late in December, saying his life was in danger because of his participation in Ukraine’s LGBT movement.

LGBT vs. Christian democracy

In an e-mail sent on May 14, 2014, Andrusiv told Globa that Democratic Alliance is a party with “a Christian democratic ideology” and that one of its basic values was the family.

“And here we have serious differences with how the LGBT community sees it,” Andrusiv wrote to Globa. “For us, a family means a husband, a wife, and children.”

He said that in their point of view the main function of the family is procreation, therefore, “we are against attempts to widen the meaning of the family, as well as the sacrament of marriage, to gay couples.”

Andrusiv noted that Democratic Alliance respected gay people and believed they deserved having a life free from humiliation and neglect, but was against gay marriage or calling a gay partnership “a family.”

“It’s important to us that this has another name, and form, since it’s not a family in the way we understand it,” Andrusiv wrote.

He advised the LGBT activist to look for a party that would be closer to his stance.

Talking to the Kyiv Post, Andrusiv stressed that the reason for the denial of membership was Globa’s political views, not his sexual orientation. He said people form political parties based on similar interests and views, so parties can reject those who hold opposing views.

“There is nothing to have a trial about,” Andrusiv said.

Ukrainian courts

However, Globa saw the rejection of membership as an act of homophobia.

“You can assert as much as you can that you are not a homophobe, but your decisions and actions absolutely fall under this definition,” he wrote in a response to Andrusiv on May 16, 2014.

Globa then filed a lawsuit against Democratic Alliance at the Holosiivskiy district court in Kyiv, citing discrimination, and demanded a symbolic Hr 1 in compensation for moral injury. However, the court ruled against Globa.

In court, Democratic Alliance said that technically Globa hadn’t been rejected because he hadn’t gone through all the stages of the party’s membership application process. The court decided that Globa couldn’t prove otherwise.

But Globa didn’t give up. After also losing in the Court of Appeal and Court of Cassation in Kyiv, he filed a lawsuit against Ukraine at the European Court of Human Rights.

Last chance: European court

A letter from the secretary of the European Court of Human Rights, published by Globa on Jan. 24, says the court received the lawsuit and will consider the case as soon as possible.

According to Globa’s lawyer, Andriy Leshchenko, it means that the case has gone through the first of the court’s filters and has not been found inadmissible. Now the court must communicate the application to Ukraine’s government, which will officially launch the process.

“Our goal is to establish justice, to prevent discrimination against LGBT people,” Leshchenko told the Kyiv Post. “To show that there is a problem.”

Another Ukrainian LGBT activist, Zoryan Kis, an advocacy and engagement manager at Freedom House Ukraine, who used to work with Globa in a gay-rights NGO Fulcrum, told the Kyiv Post he has been following the conflict from the very start.

“I saw how the situation changed the party, when it became obvious that most of its supporters felt positively or neutrally towards LGBT,” Kis said.

Now, the party stands against discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Moreover, the beta-version of the Democratic Alliance’s new policy program includes supporting the law on civil partnerships, which will give same-sex couples rights similar to those of the married ones.

All the same, Kis doesn’t fully back Globa’s case against Democratic Alliance.

“In my opinion, the party failed to follow the appropriate procedures for accepting a person as a member, or denying (membership),” he said.

“But personally, I don’t see it as a classic example of discrimination.”