"People in Ukraine have unrealistic expectations about defending their human rights"

People in Ukraine have unrealistic expectations about defending their human rights.  This was the view expressed by the Chairperson of the Supreme Court of Ukraine (SCU), Vasyl Makarenko, during an address given to the VII Congress of Judges of Ukraine on Wednesday.

A correspondent from LIGABUSINESSinform reports that Mr Malyarenko talked of ill-considered judicial refom which in his opinion had led to a dramatic increase in the number of cases which were being presented for consideration in courts of all levels.

Mr Malyarenko noted that whereas throughout 2001 Ukrainian courts had reviewed 3 million cases, this same number of cases had been dealt with by the courts merely in the first half of 2005.  An inaccurate assumption that a cassation appeal of a case may only be considered by the Supreme Court had meant that the highest court in Ukraine was “literally inundated with cases”, Mr Malyarenko stated.

He also mentioned that at the present time there were approximately 78 thousand cases awaiting Supreme Court consideration and that the majority of these had no likelihood of being allowed. “We will soon be forced to store filing cabinets with case files in the toilets”, Mr Malyarenko quipped.

In order to rectify the situation, the Chairperson of the SCU suggested temporarily delegating cassation appeal functions to regional level courts. “This would enable us to resolve many of the problems which have accumulated in the court system in Ukraine” he said in his summary.

LIGABUSINESSinform