No One Writes to PACE

On January 25 the monitoring committee at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) supported a number of amendments to its draft resolution and recommendations on the freedom of speech and parliamentary democracy in Ukraine, made by members of the Ukrainian parliamentary delegation.

As Member of the monitoring committee Vasyl K OSTYTSKY (SDPU{o} or United Social Democrat faction) said in an interview, he proposed, among other things, an amendment not to publish the results of an independent expert examination of the audio recordings, provided this was done, before the end of the investigation of the Gongadze case.

Interfax-Ukraine reports that PACE intends to recommend the CE Committee of Ministers organize, if requested by Verkhovna Rada, independent expert examinations to prove or disprove the authenticity of the original tapes and to identify the exact time and cause of the death of the person whose body was found in Tarashcha (including a DNA test). PACE also calls on the Ukrainian authorities to establish the exact date and cause of death, if it is proved that the journalist is dead, as well as to take legal action against the guilty and to pronounce the victim’s next of kin the aggrieved party should the fact of Heorhy Gongadze’s death be confirmed.

Simultaneously, Ukraine’s permanent representative in CE, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Oleksandr CHALY, has officially stated that there is no letter of Minister of Justice Siuzanna Stanyk to the PACE president about her readiness to furnish CE with the allegedly recorded conversations of this country’s top officials. He said on January 24, addressing Ukrainian journalists in Strasbourg, that journalists had misunderstood Lord Russell-Johnston at his press conference. When the PACE investigators were received at the Ministry of Justice during their latest visit to Ukraine, he explained, they were given a letter signed by a Ukrainian judicial expert who had been examining the tapes, which (letter) laid down “approaches, methods, and results.”

He also denied allegations that PACE had received an official Verkhovna Rada letter requesting assistance in conducting an independent examination of the audiocassettes.

Meanwhile, monitoring committee member Hanne Severinsen told a press conference on the topic, Freedom of Speech and the Functioning of Parliamentary Democracy in Ukraine, that the current session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe would not discuss any possible sanctions on Ukraine. UNIAN reports that Ms. Severinsen believes Ukraine should be given a chance to mend its ways. Moreover, Ms. Severinsen pointed out that the Verkhovna Rada resolution on requesting international organizations to help conduct independent expert examinations of the audiocassettes and body found in the Tarashcha woods, as well as a letter from the ad hoc investigative commission to PACE on the Gongadze inquiry, are sufficient to consider this as Ukraine’s appeal for help to the Council of Europe. According to Ms. Severinsen, they have a competent institution in Vienna, capable of conducting this kind of examination.