Representatives of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission
in Ukraine paid a visit the Constitutional Court
Today, October 23, Oleksandr Tupytskyi, Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, held a working meeting with Matilda Bogner, Head of UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
The event was attended by the Head of the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Viktor Beschastnyi and the Mission’s Human Rights Officers Sergii Kurnosenko and Mykhailo Sorochyshyn.
“The activity of the body of constitutional jurisdiction of Ukraine is aimed at ensuring the supremacy of the Constitution of Ukraine, protection of human and civil rights and freedoms”, said the Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. So the visit of Mission representatives and discussion of the state of securing the human rights and freedoms and their practical implementation is extremely important.
Matilda Bogner informed that the Mission has been working in Ukraine since 2014 to monitor and report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. She stressed that special attention is paid to the situation in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
She presented the conclusions and recommendations of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed in the report “Human Rights in the Context of Justice in Criminal Cases Related to the Conflicts in Ukraine”. After that, the problems of human rights in the criminal proceedings related to the conflict, considered by Ukrainian courts, in particular in the uncontrolled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and in the Crimea, were covered.
During the conversation, the parties focused on a number of decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine related to the protection of human rights.
The participants discussed the right to liberty, a fair trial and effective legal protection. In this context, the Mission’s representatives positively assessed the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine of June 25, 2019, by which the Court declared Article 176.5 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine to be unconstitutional, in particular because it had limited judicial control over detention and thus hindered the exercise of a person's right to liberty.
The positive impact of the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on the state of human rights protection in the country in this aspect was also noted.
The Court’s decision on quarantine restrictions, in which the Court stressed that the restriction of the constitutional human and citizen’s rights and freedoms is possible in cases specified by the Constitution of Ukraine was also discussed. Such a restriction may be established only by law, while the establishment of such a restriction by a bylaw is contrary to the Basic Law of the state.
The UN Monitoring Mission representatives once again assessed positively the decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on the compliance of Article 375 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine with the Constitution of Ukraine, which declared the disputed article to be unconstitutional.
The Chairman of the Court drew attention to some problematic aspects of the implementation of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. In his opinion, it is necessary to introduce a clear mechanism for monitoring the execution of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
The parties also discussed other topical issues, including current attempts to influence the Court's work. According to Oleksandr Tupytskyi, the situation related to the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the consideration of individual cases is of deep concern, as it destabilises the socio-political situation in the country and allows undue influence on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in general and individual judges of the Constitutional Court in particular.
The Head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine Matilda Bogner said that she was aware of these issues.
The Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine thanked the UN Monitoring Mission for Human Rights in Ukraine representatives for the visit and stressed the readiness of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine for further cooperation.
