IN THE CROSS HAIRS OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE
These days Ukraine has again received Hanne Severinsen, well known for critically reproaching Ukraine’s top authorities, especially during the last year’s referendum. In the course of a three-day visit to Kyiv, Ms. Severinsen gathered information on the situation in Ukraine to prepare a report to a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) meeting on how our state is honoring the pledges it took when entering the CE. By all accounts, Kyiv is taking rather a dim view of the results of this report, although parliamentary Vice Speaker Stepan Havrysh is confident that PACE will make balanced conclusions. Incidentally, Verkhovna Rada has so far passed neither the Civil nor the Criminal Codes, which Strasbourg expected. This has led some Ukrainian politicians to already request Ms. Severinsen to postpone consideration of the Ukrainian question until June, as was agreed upon earlier. A similar request was made to the PACE envoy on March 29 by Mr. Havrysh and slightly earlier by the People’s Deputy Borys Oliynyk, representative of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE. They are convinced it would be better if the Parliamentary Assembly discussed the freedom of expression in Ukraine and investigation of the Gongadze case in April, putting off the fulfillment of pledges until June. Havrysh emphasized that Kyiv could fulfill all its obligations by June.
Last Thursday, addressing the media, PACE Monitoring Committee representative Hanne Severinsen said no progress had been achieved so far in investigating journalist Heorhy Gongadze’s disappearance. Yet, she said she considered it necessary that Ukraine reach an agreement with the FBI on an expert examination of Melnychenko’s cassettes. The PACE rapporteur emphasized that she agreed to the International Press Institute conclusions that this problem is of a political nature and should be solved in Ukraine. Ms. Severinsen also promised PACE would carefully track any shifts in the Gongadze case.
Ms. Severinsen held scheduled meetings with members of the parliamentary commission investigating into the circumstances of journalist Heorhy Gongadze’s disappearance. The Day asked commission Chairman Oleksandr Lavrynovych to comment.
“In the course of the meeting I informed the PACE rapporteur that no serious changes had taken place since our previous meeting in January. The actions we took in reply to requests failed to provide us with answers to the most important questions: who committed the crime, what happened, and why? We fell short of our expectations, including those for Madam Rapporteur’s mediation in the Council of Europe in order to speed up the expert examinations of the cassettes, because, after PACE had passed the relevant resolution, Mr. Melnychenko never turned to this institution, although he had earlier voiced his readiness to hand over the original cassettes all for independent examination allegedly containing recordings of the conversations of Ukraine’s top officials. During this meeting we saw again that some members of parliamentary commissions are trying to use the CE to solve the problems of certain Ukrainian politicians.”
Asked by The Day about the likely results of this meeting, Mr. Lavrynovych admitted that the meeting “may have voiced a different viewpoint which cannot always be heeded by the messengers of a European body.” Moreover, the people’s deputy conceded that this time the rapporteur “was aware that we have problems not only with the legal coverage of parliamentary investigative commissions but also with regulating the work of two simultaneous investigations or controlling those who conduct operative and investigative measures.” Summing up the meeting’s results, Mr. Lavrynovych wished Ms. Severinsen would tell Strasbourg not to attempt to use one specific case as a pretext for international actions against the Ukrainian state. “This is the ultimate wish of some politicians in and perhaps outside Ukraine,” he said.
During yesterday’s telephone conversation with the correspondent from The Day , the PACE representative stated that the outcome from the last meetings were much more successful than she had anticipated.
However, things did not pass without worries. First of all, Severinsen proclaimed her disappointment with the repetitive arrest of Yuliya Tymoshenko. Severinsen states that the former prime minister confirmed her wish to remain in Ukraine and she also wishes to return her passports to the Prosecutor General. In the opinion of the rapporteur, the arrest of Tymoshenko is “a bad sign” for the Ukrainian leadership. The second disillusionment of the PACE representative flow from the statements of the permanent representative of Ukraine in the Council of Europe, Oleksandr Chaly, who calls her comments to some extent one-sided. Severinsen pointed out that her one-sidedness is based on only one thing, a democratic Ukraine. She disagrees with Charlie Service and with his stand towards the politicization of the monitoring committee. Meeting with the press, the representative of Ukraine to the Council of Europe suggested that the “discussions on the political situation in Ukraine goes beyond the mandate of the monitoring committee”. In his view, such a stance will hinder the Verkhovna Rada’s acceptance of the necessary legislative acts. If one were to logically judge the statements of Mr. Chaly, this kind of politicization is beneficial to the representative of the parliamentary delegation of Ukraine, Serhiy Holovaty, in PACE. The deputy minister of foreign affairs did not openly mention this circumstance, which was left to be stated by UNIAN. Mrs. Severinsen, among other things, is convinced that “internal political matters cannot be internal, if the generally accepted norms are exceeded, the norms that Ukraine promised upon entry into the Council of Europe. In this case these are no longer internal issues, but those of all members of the Council of Europe.”
Hanna Severinsen believes that Ukraine will keep to the commitments it accepted on entry into the Council of Europe and finally will accept the promised by them a long time ago legislative acts. In the interview with The Day she also reassuringly stated that Ukraine’s membership in the organization will not be withdrawn.
