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Ukraine moved from the 1st to 6th place by the number of citizens’ claims to the European Court of human rights.

20.10.2004   
Secretariat of the Council of human rights protecting organizations
During two last years Ukraine moved from the 1st to 6th place by the number of citizens’ claims to the European Court of human rights. Today Ukraine is surpassed by Russia, which occupies the 1st place, and, respectively, Poland, Romania, France and Turkey. However, the number of claims against Ukraine, which contain the formal features for their consideration by the European Court, increases. This information was communicated by Oleksandr Lavrynovich, the Minister of Justice of Ukraine.

According to the words of the Minister, since the moment of coming into effect of the Convention on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms for Ukraine (September 1997) more than 8000 persons turned to the European Court of human rights with the complaints against the violation by the power organs of Ukraine of rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

The majority of these complaints are rejected by the European Court. At the same time, by the words of the Minister, in 2000 the European Court regarded 26 claims as acceptable for consideration and sent these claims to the Ukrainian government for comment; in 2001 the number of such claims was 13, in 2002 – 18 and in 2003 – 156. This year the National Bureau considered more than 200 cases received from the European Court.

The Minister listed the most common types of the claims, which were recognized by the European Court as potentially accepted for consideration: the complaints against the impossibility of execution of the decisions of national courts, too long duration of court proceedings, application of illegal investigation methods to the accused and inefficient investigation by prosecutor’s offices of the complaints about torture, violation of rights during detention and taking into custody, as well as violations of procedural rights of Ukrainians.

Oleksandr Lavrynovich also stated that the flaws in the domestic legislation were found during the consideration of cases, in particular in the spheres of reforming-labor legislation, laws on fighting with the illegal sale of narcotic drugs, family legislation, questions of efficiency of appealing against the actions of courts, legislation on administrative offences, questions of appealing against the actions of investigating officers during the preliminary investigation, questions of free advocate’s services in civil cases , legislation on bankruptcy and the Law “On introduction of moratorium on the coercive realization of property”, questions of criminal-procedural and civil legislation in the part of the right for liberty and personal security.

“If Ukraine would not introduce the proper changes into her national legislation, then during next two years the number of the claims against our state, in which the European Court would find the violation of human rights, can increase more than tenfold”, pointed out the Minister.

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