Despite the war, Ukraine continues to make human rights advances

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — Four days after Russian tanks rolled across the border of Ukraine in February 2022, Marharyta Sokorenko had a deadline.

Sokorenko, Ukraine’s representative at the European Court for Human Rights, was supposed to submit a report to the Council of Europe, the body which oversees the Strasbourg court, explaining how her country was meeting certain human rights standards.

Then-32, Sokorenko could have told the organization the information would be late. On the morning that Russia launched its full-scale invasion — after checking on her family and her staff — she notified the court that Ukraine would be unable to meet some of its obligations because of the war.

The European Convention on Human Rights, which underpins the court, allows countries to ignore some of its protections in the event of “war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation.” For example, 10 countries asked for — in court parlance — a derogation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, as Ukrainian forces held off the Russian advance just 19 miles north of Kyiv, Sokorenko’s office turned in the report. “We submitted it at night, but we submitted it on time,” she told Courthouse News during an interview in her office in Kyiv.

Despite fending off an active invasion, Ukraine has continued to implement decisions from the court, including making substantial changes to its judiciary system. The Committee of Ministers, which oversees the implementation of court judgments, has closed 142 cases since the invasion, finding Ukraine has met all of the requirements of the rulings.

Meeting their deadlines has been a core facet of Ukraine’s approach to justice and accountability. “We don’t ask for extensions,” Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, told Courthouse News, during an interview last month.

Judicial Independence

Oleksandr Volkov brought one of the thousands of cases filed against Ukraine. The Supreme Court judge was sacked in 2010 in a process the court would later describe as “unfair” and “unlawful.”

Philip Leach, one of Volkov’s lawyers, said when his organization, European Human Rights Advocacy Centre, was approached by the Ukrainian jurist, they knew the case could have a substantial impact but that Kyiv would likely fight any decision.

“The government was hostile to the case and it wasn’t going to implement it,” Leach told Courthouse News.

The judge contested his firing, ultimately filing a complaint at the ECHR in 2011. Two years later, judges at the court would agree, finding Volkov was unfairly dismissed and ordering him to be rehired. The decision also found that there were substantial problems with Ukraine’s judicial system and told the country it needed to make serious changes.

The now retired judge would be reinstated in 2015 but it would take Ukraine until this year to finally fix the problems with the system as a whole. It required courts to make changes to their regulations, parliament to pass national legislation and even an update to the constitution.

“It was not easy,” Sokorenko said.

A New Direction

In breaking away from the Soviet Union and aligning with Europe, Ukraine ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1997. Russia would later also join the Council of Europe and, following the full-scale invasion, become the first country to be expelled in the organization’s 75-year history.

Joining the Council of Europe and the court was seen as a win for human rights. But Ukraine has been a major source of cases for the court. It currently accounts for about 20% of new cases and has the highest number of pending judgments of any of the 46 member states.

When Volkov, the former supreme court judge, got his decision from the court, Ukraine was headed by pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. By the time he was reinstated to his post two years later, the country had changed.

Yanukovych was ousted during the Euromaidan protests in February 2014 and only months later, Russia would annex Crimea, kicking off the ongoing conflict. Yanukovych‘’’s increasingly aggressive crackdown during his last year in office led to a doubling of cases filed at the court.

Moving Forward

On Feb. 24, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed martial law in the country, banning able-bodied men from leaving the country and imposing a curfew. Many of the restrictions would, in a time of peace, violate the convention.

Although fighting continues, in April, the country informed the court it would significantly reduce the parts of the treaty it was exempted from. The change lifted some restrictions on freedom of assembly, right to a fair trial and the political activity of foreigners.

“This war is about human rights,” Pushkar Pavlo, who heads the department at the Council of Europe that oversees the implementation of court rulings, told Courthouse News. Pavlo is also Ukrainian.

The lawyer says that his country is pushing forward with implementing ECHR judges, despite the conflict, because Ukraine wants to distinguish itself from Russia.

The Russian Federation had a rocky history with the court. The country had its voting rights suspended in 2000 over the Second Chechen War and again after it annexed Crimea. Moscow often failed to execute judgments and, before it was kicked out in 2022, was the largest source of cases for the court.

Russia is still legally bound by the treaty for cases brought before it was expelled, but the country failed to turn up to hearings in a case with Ukraine in January — another historical first for the court. Russia also no-showed at a hearing last month overthe downing of Flight MH17

In its 2023 annual report on the execution of judgments, the Council of Europe gave Ukraine a shoutout.

“The war of aggression has not only caused extraordinary suffering but has also had very severe consequences on Ukraine’s national capacity to promptly execute the Court’s judgments…. Nevertheless, as in 2022, Ukraine continued to demonstrate its commitment to the Convention system by actively engaging in the execution process.”

Sokorenko, who sat across the aisle from an empty table after Russia did not turn up to its most recent hearing at the court, is straightforwardly pragmatic.

“The first two days after the invasion, we learned to live in this new reality. Then you have to go to work.”

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