Ukrainian opposition says they will appeal in European Court the decision about Tymoshenko and Lutsenko

Ruslan Knyazevich, representative of the united
opposition in the Central Election Commission

The united oppositional power Batkivshyna (Homeland) will appeal in the European Court for Human Rights the decisions of Ukrainian courts which confirmed the legality of the refusal of Central Election Commission to register the candidacies of opposition figures, Ukrainian ex Prime Minister Julia Tymoshenko and ex Minister of Interior Yury Lutsenko for the upcoming parliamentary election.

The representative of the United Opposition in the Central Election Commission Ruslan Knyazevich stated that there is no trust in the state’s procedures anymore, so the political party will take the appropriate decision and will refer to the European Court for Human Rights seeking help in this situation.

We have to remind here that Ukrainian Central Election Commission recently refused to register the candidacies of Julia Tymoshenko and Yury Lutsenko for the parliamentary election according to the decision of the court which banned the both oppositional leaders from the participation in the election and political life of Ukraine due to their trials and current imprisonment. The oppositional forces have already appealed this decision in the High Court of Appeal of Ukraine, but the Court stated the decision about was legal.

Ruslan Knyazevish stressed that this decision of the Court was not surprising for him. “It’s obvious, that some decisions were already made, so we didn’t expect something new in this case”, Knyazevich said. But he said it was surprising and strange that the Court used the political reasons in their arguments for the decision taken by the judicial body.

Julia Tymoshenko

Yury Lutsenko

Some of the aspects indicated in the Court’s decision are absolutely political, such as the passage, that the law about the parliamentary election was adopted with the participation of the oppositional forces, while the opposition appeals one of the parts of this law now. Such an argument is political and doesn’t have anything in common with the judiciary.

Knyazevich stated that it’s nothing new for him in this situation, but it is very worrying and depressing sign, that Ukrainian highest Court is more likely keen to take rather the political-judicial decision than the only judicial ones. Under such circumstances the united Ukrainian opposition decided to address the European Court for Human Rights to appeal such a decision.