On August 23 Kyiv Pechersk local court judge Y. H. Ivanenko adjured the weekly 2000 to refrain from further publication of an article about Damian Bank managers whom a Swiss court found guilty 13 months ago of financial machinations, as well as other publications relating to Yury Sydorenko, another defendant in Switzerland. Mr. Sydorenko himself filed the lawsuit to protect his honor, dignity, and business reputation. The court did not explain the reason for this decision but set a 15-day period of appeal. Handing down this ruling, the judge was guided by Article 152 of the Civil Procedures Code of Ukraine which says that, to handle a lawsuit, a court can rule to discontinue certain actions if the latter may obstruct or justice or make it impossible to carry it out.
The August 31 issue of 2000 came out with a blank space on page seven, where, instead of the article, there is a notice, “The material planned by the editors to be placed on this page has been banned by the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv for considerations of censorship.”
The Constitution of Ukraine guarantees freedom of expression. How can we view the action of a court which rules in our tenth year of independence to ban a material from being published without even trying to explain the reason why? Is censorship really making a comeback, this time under a new more civilized guise by way of a court? Does this mean that a court, in the name of defending no one knows whose interests, can restrict the constitutional right of our citizens to gain all information that is not a state secret? And, finally, a technical question arises: suppose the article is published in some other newspaper?
