The sensation occurred at a court hearing in the case of Oleksandr Horobets, former chief editor of the Pravda Ukrainy, vs. the new management and what the claimant considered his unlawful dismissal. The respondent, secretary of a primary journalist organization Oleksandr Sokol, admitted that the documents produced by the defense counsel were forged as instructed by new Editor-in-Chief Olha Pronina.
In the fall of 1998, while in preliminary detention at the Lukyanivka Prison awaiting trial on charges of rape (the charges would be found false by the court), Horobets’s colleagues at the editorial office Olha Pronina, Natalia Svichkolap, and several others forced the chief editor to tender his resignation. Since Pravda Ukrainy’s founder was the editorial staff, the resignation and attendant replacement had to be approved by a meeting of the primary journalist organization. Released from detention and being fully acquitted, Horobets sued the editorial office, claiming reinstatement as Editor-in-Chief. On April 28, Oleksandr Sokol, acting on the defendant’s behalf, admitted that the minutes with the resolution dismissing Horobets had been falsified.
At next hearing on May 24 Olha Pronina testified for the defense, but this is not likely to help. The preliminary inquiry was completed Wednesday and the court proceeded to hear arguments. At that stage it transpired that Horobets’s counsel Oksana Utyralova employed tactic based on distraction. While in the course of the preliminary inquiry she harassed the defense, demanding proof that the journalists’ meeting was legitimate, pressing on until the other side admitted to falsehood, when it came to presenting the case the topic simply faded in the background. Everything proved dramatically simpler. Horobets’s dismissal was entered in his labor book on December 11, 1998, while the journalist meeting resolving to dismiss him allegedly took place December 14, three days later.
As for Oleksandr Sokol, he was promptly stripped of his position as a leading journalist and the resolution was passed on May 3, a day off, in his absence. Word is that he will soon be pounding the pavements. Below is what Mr. Sokol told The Day on the subject:
“I think that Oleksandr Horobets is a dishonest man. He had to be dismissed from his post, but it had to be done in good faith. As it was, his replacement turned out to be dishonest as well. The court hearings are a disgrace for Pravda Ukrainy and Ukrainian journalism as a whole. The sad fact remains that under Premier Pavlo Lazarenko and then during his so- called opposition the newspaper was perhaps the first in Ukraine to turn into a yellow gutter press rag. It was while Horobets was chief editor that it carried political articles made to order, totally disregarding journalist ethics, let alone authenticity. Pravda Ukrainy distorted the very notion of an opposition press as honest and unbiased criticism of the existing regime being done for the public good, fair competition, and contending political ideas.”
The trouble is, however, that similar unfair and unlawful methods were applied to destroy PU during the 1998 parliamentary campaign. The Day has broached the subject on more than one occasion, repeating time and again that defending PU is anything but enjoyable, but one has to in order to secure the freedom of expression and establish a state truly ruled by law. Regrettably, both the opposition and the government went into a free-for-all before the presidential elections, causing what we have now. We are all up to our ears in the muck in Ukraine’s Augean stables. As for Horobets, he now has a chance to become something like a living symbol of the downtrodden freedom of speech. Was there nobody at the time who could think a couple of steps ahead and predict the consequences (even if out of sheer pragmatism)? But for this shortsightedness we would not have what we have. One is left to hope that what is happening will teach Ukrainian journalism a lesson, so our media people will defend their independence and draw the appropriate conclusions.
INCIDENTALLY
Last Thursday morning, Mr. Horobets made an attempt to resume his official duties, Interfax reports. Journalist Oleh Liashko, who accompanied him, told editorial office employees that he had been appointed Mr. Horobets’s first deputy. Mr. Liashko read out an extract from the court ruling, as well as Mr. Horobets’s order to dismiss the newspaper’s previous Editor-in-Chief, Olha Pronina, and her first deputy. Meanwhile, last Wednesday the work collective held an extraordinary meeting and decided to carry out the court sentence and reinstate Mr. Horobets in office. After that, they unanimously decided to pass a vote of no confidence in Mr. Horobets and dismiss him from office. There was a clash in the editor-in-chief’s office in the morning. Mr. Horobets left the editorial premises, promising to come back with an officer of the court.
