Transparency International Ukraine (TI Ukraine) has expressed its alarm at the absence of publication of a court ruling on confiscation of $1.5 billion of cronies of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The nongovernmental organization predicts that this would give grounds to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to oblige Ukraine to return the funds to owners.
“The absence of a court decision in public access raises doubts about its legal purity. If this decision is taken in violation of the rules of substantive or procedural law, this will create the basis for its appeal in international judicial institutions. We can assume that if it is unreasonable, it will be decided that the rights of specific owners of these assets were violated, and the European Court of Human Rights can oblige Ukraine to return more than a billion (U.S. dollars) to the owners in a several years in the foreign currency, regardless of the exchange rate, from the national budget,” a representative of TI Ukraine Andriy Sliusar told journalists in Kyiv on July 4.
A correspondent of Interfax-Ukraine said that Sliusar recalled that the Kramatorsk city court made a decision to confiscate $1.5 billion three months ago, but the verdict has not yet been made public.
At the same time, Head of the Verkhovna Rada committee on preventing and combating corruption Yehor Sobolev proposed at a committee meeting on July 4 in Kyiv to file a lawsuit against the military prosecutor’s office of Ukraine and the State Judicial Administration.
