Lustration violated rights of Ukrainian officials - ECHR

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued such a judgment on Thursday, October 17, according to Ukrinform's correspondent in Strasbourg.

"The case Polyakh and Others v. Ukraine (applications nos. 58812/15, 53217/16, 59099/16,

23231/18, and 47749/18) concerned the dismissal of five civil servants under the Government Cleansing (Lustration) Act of 2014," the court reported.

In the present Chamber judgment in the case the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights owing to the length of the proceedings in the first three applicants' domestic cases, and a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the Convention in respect of all five applicants.

The Court first held that the first three applicants' right to a fair trial had been violated because proceedings on their dismissal had lasted more than four and a half years and were still ongoing. As for the Article 8 issue, the Court did not doubt that in the period when former President Viktor Yanukovych was in power the Ukrainian civil service and democratic governance had indeed faced considerable challenges which justified a need for reform.

However, the Court found in particular that the Government Cleansing Act was of very broad application and had led to the dismissal of the applicants simply for having worked in the civil service for more than a year while Yanukovych was in power or for having been a Communist Party official before 1991.

The law therefore had no regard to the applicants' individual roles or whether they had been associated with any of the undemocratic acts which had taken place under the former president.

In that context, Ukraine's Government Cleansing Act differed from more narrowly targeted lustration programs put in place in other Central and Eastern European States.

The ECHR held that Ukraine was to pay each applicant 5,000 euros in respect of non-pecuniary damage. In respect of costs and expenses it awarded EUR 1,500 to the first applicant and EUR 300 each to the second to fifth applicants.

The Verkhovna Rada adopted a law on government cleansing (lustration) in September 2014. It imposed a ban on holding certain positions in the civil service for persons who worked for at least one year in the civil service in the period from February 25, 2010 to February 22, 2014.

The Constitutional Court recognized the lustration law as being in line with the Constitution of Ukraine.

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