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| Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukrainian ex-Prime Minister and prominent oppositional leader (Image: The Guardian) |
After Thursday’s scandalous voting for the new 2014 budget of Ukraine
and 10 controversial laws seriously restricting personal and civil rights and
freedoms of Ukrainian citizens Ukrainian prominent oppositional leader,
ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is currently imprisoned by regime of “President”
Yanukovich, has issued an official statement addressing Ukrainian opposition
and activists. Mrs. Tymoshenko calls for the oppositional politicians to react
urgently in order to fight for democracy and freedom in Ukraine.
Yulia Tymoshenko calls Thursday’s voting for the repressive laws in
Parliament, which happened with serious violations, illegitimate and claims it
has no legal basis. With this move Yanukovich actually destroyed parliamentary
system in Ukraine and made another step to impose dictatorship in Ukraine,
stated Mrs. Tymoshenko. She calls on opposition to not lose the rime and start
to act immediately using legal ways such as Ukrainian court and European Court
as well.
Official statement of Yulia Tymoshenko was published on her officialwebsite on Friday, 17 January:
Statement by Yulia Tymoshenko about events in the Verkhovna Rada on
January 16, 2014:
- On January 16, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada "adopted" laws
without legitimately voting for them.
This isn’t just a blatant crime, for which those guilty, when the time
comes, will face criminal liability, it’s also the final step in the
elimination of Ukrainian parliamentarism as the main branch of government in
Ukraine.
I am convinced that everything that happened in parliament was
sanctioned by Viktor Yanukovych. Today, by deliberately killing
parliamentarism, he took another major step towards establishing dictatorship
in Ukraine.
I believe the parliamentary opposition must do the following:
First. Send open public letters asap to Yanukovych and Rybak demanding
that they not sign these laws that parliament did not vote for, with clear
legal proof of this and video evidence.
Second. If after these public letters Yanukovych and Rybak still sign
these illegitimate laws, I ask the parliamentary opposition on that same day to
submit to the Prosecutor General’s Office the report of a crime by Yanukovych,
Rybak, Kalyetnik and Oliynyk and others involved and make sure that it is added
to the Unified Register of Criminal Investigations.
Third. I ask the opposition to file a lawsuit that on January 16 the
process of passing laws was violated and demand that this vote be invalidated.
The complaint should include video evidence and demand that the laws be
suspended until a ruling is delivered by the courts.
Fourth. I ask the opposition to take this lawsuit on the illegitimacy of
the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada on January 16 of a package of laws to all
possible Ukrainian courts and submit it as quickly as possible to the European
Court of Human Rights and ask that it be given priority.
Fifth. Regardless of what the Ukrainian courts and Prosecutor General’s
Office will do to stop the illegitimate voting process in the Verkhovna Rada
(most likely they will allow this crime to happen), I ask the opposition to
create a public commission of leading human rights activists that together with
journalists will investigate this crime and make fair demands to the Ukrainian
authorities. This expert opinion may have to be included in the application to
the European Court.
I ask the opposition and civil society to act quickly and decisively
because we won’t be defending the law, which Yanukovych humiliated on January
16, but Ukrainian parliamentarism, which is the final barricade before the
total establishment of dictatorship.
I ask the opposition to act immediately.
Yulia Tymoshenko
Kachanivska prison, Kharkiv
16 January 2014
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