The decision of the panel of judges of the Cassation Administrative Court within the Supreme Court regarding Poroshenko’s lawsuit on illegal sanctions was made under political pressure – this was stated during a briefing by the lawyers of the fifth President. They announced they are appealing this decision to the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, as well as to the ECHR and the UN Human Rights Committee.
It became known that two judges – Presiding Radyshevskaya and former head of the CAC Smokovych – stated in their separate opinions that the authorities did not provide grounds for imposing sanctions on Poroshenko, therefore the sanctions should be lifted. The three other judges who sided with the authorities are Kashpor, Macedonska, and Melnyk-Tomenko. According to the lawyers, this decision’s orchestrator from the beginning was Andriy Portnov.
The lawyers noted that the motivation part of the decision to deny lifting the sanctions is partially classified, although it contains nothing that wasn’t previously disclosed: the sanctions were imposed based on a letter signed by the Head of the State Financial Monitoring Pronin, and the charges against Poroshenko were copied from a publication subordinate to Portnov. The Supreme Court’s decision has already been sent to Ukraine’s international partners, who are closely monitoring the case, the lawyers said.
“You see an article in the publication “Law and Business,” the style is very recognizable, it was written by Andriy Portov, who was then still alive and very active. He anticipated that the NSDC would impose sanctions on Poroshenko exactly for what Pronin proposed a month later,” says Novikov.
He also noted that some NSDC members who participated in the meeting are now dismissed from high positions, under investigation, or involved in corruption scandals. “Some journalists asked whether we think Poroshenko was hit by a boomerang for inventing the Ukrainian sanctions law. Here’s the real boomerang, the boomerang of Zelensky. And these people, listed in the official protocol as NSDC members who made the decision to impose sanctions on Poroshenko – Halushchenko is now under suspicion, Yermak – under suspicion, wears a bracelet, lost his position, Klymenko lost his position, Syrsky, Svyrydenko, Stefanishina – they are all in one way or another no longer holding the positions they did during that disgraceful NSDC meeting for such an institution,” says the lawyer.
As noted by lawyer Ihor Holovan, the sanctions against Poroshenko for supposedly preparing the Kharkiv agreements are absurd since he held no state position at the time these agreements were made. Moreover, the Kharkiv agreements are still valid in Ukraine, Holovan says. “If we open the page on the Verkhovna Rada website now, where these Kharkiv agreements are posted, which are officially called “agreements regarding the presence of the Russian Black Sea fleet on the territory of Ukraine,” we see that the status of this document is still valid today. And even considering that Poroshenko was neither the initiator nor a participant in the conclusion of this agreement, we see that the Ukrainian parliament still deems this agreement valid. It’s complete absurdity,” says Holovan.
Poroshenko’s lawyers insist that the case’s hearing in the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court should be open to ensure the public witnesses the authorities’ complete arbitrariness.
“We hope that at the national level, at the level of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, in the appeal to be considered by the Grand Chamber, we will be able to prove that presidential decrees of this type have no right to exist. We hope to hear such responses from the Supreme Court here in Ukraine, in Kyiv,” says Novikov.
“European institutions, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe clearly indicated that the presence or absence of progress will be decisive in the issue of Ukraine’s European integration. And even if we do not hear lawful, substantiated answers to this question from the Supreme Court, we will definitely hear them from European bodies,” Novikov said.
