Ukrainians will apply less to Strasbourg

KHPG lawyer Arkady Bushchenko believes that in 2009 Ukrainians will make fewer applications to the European Court of Human Rights. This, he says, is because people have stopped believing in its omnipotence. “At first people wrote to them on any issue. However we know that 98 percent of applications are not accepted because they do not fall within the jurisdiction of the European Court. After having their applications turned down, people pass on to their neighbours that this court can’t help.”

At the same time Bushchenko stresses that applications from Ukrainians have improved in quality and become “interesting” from the juridical point of view.  He believes that judgments from the European Court of Human Rights on such cases could have impact on reform of the Ukrainian system of court proceedings.

Last year, Ukraine was ordered to pay 20 million UAH in favour of applicants. Arkady Bushchenko confirms that the Ukrainian authorities do fully pay out material compensation to claimants, however there are problems with providing just satisfaction and reforming the legal system.

From a brief interview given to the Ukrainian Service of Deutsche Welle

Arkady Bushchenko is the Head of KHPG’s Legal Aid Centre for Victims of Ill-treatment and is also Head of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Board. He recently successfully represented another case where the Ukrainian Government was found to be in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.