Russia’s near total silence about its imprisonment and trial of Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz and others at the International Court of Justice in the Hague is hardly surprising, when Ukraine is accusing it of discriminating against Crimean Tatars and ethnic Ukrainians, and the prosecution in question has openly targeted only Crimean Tatars.

The trial in Russian-occupied Crimea has begun of Volodymyr Balukh, a Ukrainian from North Crimea whose latest arrest came just a week after he nailed a plaque to his home in honour of activists slain during Euromaidan. The case has reached the court with suspicious speed given that the only thing that is entirely clear-cut is the political motivation behind the charges

Maidan is continuing with efforts to prevent yet another rejuggling of a reform-resistant status quo through the appointment of seriously compromised judges to the Supreme Court

The Kremlin is well known for pulling former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych out of hiding for its own purposes. Now Ukraine’s leaders have been accused of using Yanukovych as an excuse to push legislation that may have dangerous repercussions for Ukraine’s justice system—while not necessarily bringing Yanukovych and his cronies any closer to justice

The same Ukrainian MPs who rightly call for sanctions against those police, prosecutors and judges in Russia implicated in the torture and fabricated prosecutions of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and many other Ukrainians are silent about the injustice against other Ukrainians closer to home.

A massive demonstration, organized by the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, outside Crimea’s parliament on February 26, 2014 prevented Russia from claiming Crimea had voluntarily chosen to be annexed. This is not just information for historians since the demonstration has been used as pretext for one of the most lawless of Russia’s trials in occupied Crimea – and for revenge against Crimean Tatars

Laws passed since Maidan are actively blocking the chances of holding those guilty of crimes against Maidan activists to answer. Most worryingly, the law on trial in absentia, essentially tailored around former President Viktor Yanukovych could result in European Court of Human Rights judgements against Ukraine.

In a move as unexpected as it is lawless, Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov has been deprived of his defence lawyer Nikolai Polozov. The Crimean Supreme Court under Russian occupation rejected Polozov’s appeal against a ruling allowing Polozov to be interrogated as a ‘witness’ in Umerov’s case. A

Crimean lawyer Emil Kurbedinov has been freed after 10 days’ unwarranted imprisonment but the FSB are still holding computers seized during armed searches. This is an obvious violation – recognized by everybody except Russia’s Ombudsperson – of both Kurbedinov’s rights and the rights of the many victims of persecution he is defending

De facto Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov’s testimony on Jan 31 against Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz clashed with hard evidence, but it did reveal some interesting details. 

Among the candidates for posts in the Supreme Court [SCU] are the former President of the Court who justified Viktor Yanukovych’s draconian ‘dictatorship’ laws and judges involved in politically motivated prosecutions. The CHESNO civic movement has sounded the alarm to ensure that purportedly fair competition does not re-establish the heavily tarnished status quo.

12 of 23 ex-Berkut officers suspected of gunning down protesters in the last bloody days of Euromaidan have now received Russian citizenship or leave to remain as ‘refugees’. It appears now that 3 other officers on trial over the deaths have been added to the list of people to be handed over in exchange for Ukrainian hostages.

A man who has admitted taking part in the fatal attack on journalist Viacheslav Veremiy in February 2014 has once again been released from custody. This is despite legitimate grounds for believing that if Yury Krysin does not simply go into hiding, he will continue his criminal activities

A court in Russian-occupied Crimea has ordered that Nikolai Polozov be interrogated as a witness in the prosecution of Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov, giving the FSB grounds to demand his removal from the case.

The Vinnytsa Regional Court of Appeal has quashed a 4.5 year sentence against activist Yury Pavlenko [Khort] which gained publicity, perhaps unwarrantedly, over the activist’s ripping up of a portrait of President Petro Poroshenko 

Having failed to prevent Euromaidan, Russia is avenging itself on individual activists, including through surreal court trials in Russian-occupied Crimea for alleged actions over which it can have no jurisdiction. The 10-year sentence just upheld against 23-year-old Andriy Kolomiyets has demonstrated that any Ukrainian who took part in Maidan is not safe in occupied Crimea or Russia.

Oleksandr Rafalsky has died in a Ukrainian prison, let down to the end by Ukraine’s justice system and by the leaders who came to power following Euromaidan. He had spent 15 years in prison despite the lack of any evidence or motive to justify his life sentence and serious grounds for believing that any confessions in the case had been extracted through torture.

It had seemed like an indictment of Viktor Yanukovych’s presidency when in 2012 the number of acquittals by Ukrainian courts came perilously close to zero. The statistics for 2015 are not that much better, with part of the problem lying in idiotic rules and methods of measuring police and judges’ achievement

The court in Russian-occupied Crimea which handed down a surreal 10-year sentence against Andriy Kolomiyets over an alleged event during Euromaidan is blocking an appeal against the sentence. The 23-year-old Ukrainian is being held in appalling conditions, with his family unable to visit him.

A trial which highlighted the total degradation of the justice system under former President Viktor Yanukovych has re-emerged in post-Maidan Ukraine, and thus far the authorities have failed the challenge it poses