“She can not? So what, we will force her!”
It seemed that all Berkut special police units from entire country were gathered outside the Court of Appeal’s premises in Solomianska Square on November 13. Tymoshenko’s supporters tried to break the fence and come closer to the building, but were pushed to the roadway. MPs and journalists got their share of rough treatment, too... Those who had managed to break beyond the fence and into the yard were met by one more Berkut unit that was guarding the approaches to the courtroom.
“Tell me your name! Yes, you, the pensioner!” This was Oleksandra Kuzhel speaking to the plainclothes man who stood aside and watched what was happening. “What are you doing here, except collecting your salary and your pension from the state’s coffers?”
But Kuzhel’s angry words have remained without consequence. She has not been allowed to the courtroom and had to watch the trial from the conference room, along with the press. Oleksandr Turchynov was prevented from entering the courtroom for quite some time, too.
“I was told that my name was absent from a certain list,” Turchynov said to The Day’s reporter. “But the Constitution does not provide for any admission lists in courts. Any citizen may get to the courthouse with just his or her passport. It turns out that they have made a list of admissible and non-admissible persons. This is very strange, because there is no provision for such lists in any law. I guess I am blacklisted.”
At this point in our conversation, Turchynov was approached by the same plainclothes man, Berkut instantly made way for him, and Turchynov went inside the courtroom unobstructed.
Tymoshenko herself was absent in the court. “Having heard the parties’ representatives, the court decided to summon the defendant again and adjourn to give her time to arrive,” the ruling reads.
The court decided also to request from the prison Tymoshenko’s health status report. The prison administration explained that all her diseases were caused by inactivity due to too little questioning. The prisoner allegedly suffers from lack of exercise. “Commission has not found any conditions that might prevent Tymoshenko from participating in the investigation and court proceedings,” the report reads.
Tymoshenko’s aide Mykhailo Livinsky suggested that she might be brought to the court by force. “She has not arrived because she is unable to even sit. Therefore, they are looking for ways to conclude the trial as quickly as possible. They have two options: either to force her abandon the complaint, or to find some way to bring her here. I do not rule out bringing her to the court by force.”
Attorney Oleksandr Plakhotniuk also has not ruled out the possibility that she may be brought to the court on a stretcher.
In general, the hearing was conducted according to the already traditional Kirieiev scenario. Following judge Sitailo’s another refusal to recuse herself, Tymoshenko’s lawyers asked for disqualification of the entire panel of judges, but this move was refused, too.
It was revealed during the same hearing that one of the judges in the Tymoshenko appellate case is the wife of the General Prosecutor’s Office department chief. “Is this normal? Is justice a family enterprise in this country? I think this is definitely grounds for disqualification,” Serhii Vlasenko asked indignantly.
He reminded that the composition of the panel of judges was different before the appeal proceedings started. “After the preliminary hearing, judges Osypova and Pavlenko were replaced. I do not believe in strange coincidences that prompted the automated judge selection system to choose as the presiding judge Sitailo who had been the judge rapporteur at the preliminary hearing. There are ample reasons to believe that this panel was selected through illegal means.”
Lawyers say that the verdict is most likely to be rendered after the New Year, because there are no legal time limits on appellate court proceedings: they may take a few hearings as well as three to four months.
