Norway concerned by rejection of Yulia Tymoshenko’s appeal

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre takes a critical view of the fact that the Ukrainian opposition leader’s appeal has finally been rejected by Ukraine’s Higher Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases.  

“I am critical of the way this and other trials against opposition politicians in Ukraine have been carried out. They reinforce the impression of the arbitrary nature of the legal system and the lack of legal safeguards in the country,” said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.

On 29 August, Ukraine’s Higher Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases upheld the guilty verdict against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. In October 2011 Ms Tymoshenko was convicted for abuse of office in connection with a gas deal between Ukraine and Russia in 2009, and sentenced to seven years in prison. She now intends to bring her case before the European Court of Human Rights.

Former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko is also serving a prison sentence following reprehensible treatment by the Ukrainian authorities. Mr Lutsenko has been in prison since December 2010 and, like Ms Tymoshenko, has been suffering from poor health. After a long period in custody he was sentenced to four years in prison, and on 17 August he was given a two-year sentence in a second criminal case. The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Mr Lutsenko’s arrest and detention.

The international community has expressed deep concern about what it considers to be the use of selective justice against several members of Ms Tymoshenko’s former government. The process surrounding Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU has been put on hold as a result of this.

Norway has repeatedly raised this issue with the Ukrainian authorities, and the Ukrainian Ambassador to Norway was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier this year.

“The fact that Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Lutsenko are unable to stand in the Ukrainian parliamentary election because of the cases against them is a severe setback for democracy in Ukraine,” said Mr Støre, who will raise the matter in his forthcoming meeting with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister.