The 14th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva is in progress now: 197 member states of the United Nations are reporting on human rights observance. The Ukrainian delegation headed by Nazar Kulchytsky, government commissioner for the ECHR, also presented a national report. Every country was given 3.5 hours for the report itself, comments from other countries’ delegations, and questions and answers session. The main part of this scheme is recommendations of foreign colleagues; each of the countries had two minutes to express their recommendations. Such NGOs as Amnesty International, Ukrainian Helsinki Group, and Reporters Without Borders participated in the preparation to this year’s report. Experts consider this to be a good display of democracy. Since the report had to touch upon all spheres of social life, it was clear that it would be impossible to at least mention each of the problems because of the enormous amount of information.
KUDOS FOR UKRAINE: NGOs PARTICIPATED IN THE PREPARATION OF THE REPORT
Foreign delegations approved of the new Criminal Procedure Code adoption in Ukraine, creation of the institute of ombudsman for children, adoption of legislation on NGOs, and counteraction to human traffic. The most common recommendations and remarks of the UN member states related to the reforms in the judiciary system, prevention and elimination of tortures in detention facilities, politically biased justice, protection of Gastarbeiter, gender equality, freedom of speech and assembly, and ethnic minorities’ rights (Crimean Tatars, Roma, etc.). Among the newest concerns are the ones about the law on homosexual propaganda prohibition, the increase of number of injection drug addicts, and the need to protect human rights advocates. Also, a lot of countries urged Ukraine to promote the protection of its ethnic minorities.
“During my extensive working experience in the UN, I have had an opportunity to compare such things. Each country feels that if they want to present their report successfully, they have to be mobilized. A universal periodic review is an ultimate mechanism for keeping each UN member state alert. There is not a single country that falls out of this constant process of human rights legislation improvement,” Mykola Maimeskul, permanent representative of Ukraine to the United Nations office and other international organizations, told The Day. “I had a chance to participate in the presentation of the first national report, and today I had an opportunity to present the second one. There were a lot of recommendations and questions. We have heard some criticism, but it is a common thing. My overall rating of our report is positive. When talking to my colleagues, permanent representatives and ambassadors of other countries, especially the EU member states, I often heard something like: you have a lot of recommendations, which should come as no surprise for you, since Ukraine is going through a period of serious reforms, which are rather unpopular and hard to implement. If not for these reforms, there would have been no successful presentation of the report. We are far from successful implementation of all the reforms, and these questions about the judiciary system reformation, human traffic industry, and anti-discrimination legislation are quite understandable. However, our colleagues do not have updated information at their disposal: they do not yet know that this September the Verkhovna Rada worked hard and adopted a number of very important laws. I want to say that the discussion of the Ukrainian report was positive and constructive: the country needs criticism and recommendations to be able to move forward. By the way, the participation of the civil society in the process of report preparation was marked as one of the positive aspects. Not every country can boast of at least 33 international human rights organizations, national organizations, and specific groups in this field actively participating in the preparation of the national report. I am going to propose to fulfill the recommendations with the active involvement of civil society.”
Besides the official report, international delegations had an opportunity to acquaint themselves with the opinion of Ukrainian citizens on violations of their rights. In order to present this opportunity, two NGOs (the Human Rights Information Center and the Social Action Center) interviewed people on the streets and online within a project “Human Rights in Ukraine: Your Voice Is Important.” A total of about 4,000 people were interviewed: 1,800 of them in the streets, and 2,150 – online. The people’s opinion coincides with the official statement: among the most violated rights are those to fair trial, freedom from torture and abusive treatment, and the right to not being discriminated against.
“IT IS NOT THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK THAT IS IMPORTANT, BUT SPECIFIC STEPS AND REAL RESULTS”
There is one little detail: the adoption of a certain law does not guarantee that positive changes will take place. This was emphasized by the government commissioner for the ECHR Nazar Kulchytsky.
“Our greatest achievements in the sphere of human rights protection in the past few years are the new Criminal Procedure Code, Law of Ukraine “On Free Legal Aid,” and Law of Ukraine “On the Principles of Prevention and Combating Discrimination in Ukraine.” These legal documents give us a clear understanding of the ways we are going to fight it,” Kulchytsky told The Day. “The delegates touched upon a very important matter: specific steps and real results that have been achieved are of greater significance than the legal framework. We know that the situation when adoption of a law does not entail positive changes for the society is rather common. For example, if we talk about such grave problem as tortures in detention facilities, I think that real results will appear a few months after the new Criminal Procedure Code comes into effect. In my opinion, our law-enforcers do not torture people for their own pleasure. It is just the easiest way to get the confession out of the accused. It was the easiest way, actually. Considering the fact that according to the new Criminal Procedure Code courts will only take into consideration the testimony made during the trial in court, the testimony given to investigators will lose its legal power. So, the problem will be solved when the ground that created it disappears. We need some hands-on experience in this. And we pin our hopes on the stand of the higher specialized court, which will direct other courts in this matter. There is no doubt that it will be effective.”
According to the rules, a previously arranged group of three permanent representations (this time these were Cameroon, Ecuador, and Saudi Arabia) counted and analyzed the remarks. Jointly with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, this group created an extensive summary with a special accent on recommendations. This task force has already presented a draft report concerning Ukraine: our country received a total of 145 remarks. Ukraine has to decide which of these remarks should be taken into consideration and which should be dismissed before the next UN human rights session, which will take place in March 2013. Thus, in the next few months and during the next four years Ukraine needs to work on legislative changes and mechanisms of their implementations.
