Open Letter to the Country's Leaders

OPEN APPEAL

19 JUNE 2008.
To the President of Ukraine, V. A. Yushchenko
To the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yu. V. Tymoshenko
To the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, A. P. Yatsenyuk

Distinguished Viktor Andriyovych, Yuliya Volodymyrivna, and Arseniy Petrovych!
22 February 2008, we appealed to you with an open letter in which we drew your attention to numerous human rights violations in the activities of the State Department of Ukraine for the Execution of Sentences. We noted that, despite the optimistic declarations of its leadership, the department’s operations remain extremely closed to public scrutiny, almost uncontrolled, and unaccountable to society. In the Department's institutions, human rights are being brutally violated, and tension is rising. We reported on instances of gross violations of the rights of prisoners and staff in the Department's institutions, the use of unlawful violence against persons deprived of liberty, and numerous financial abuses.
For nearly four months, we have received no clear response from you regarding the issues raised, nor do we know your position on the facts and warnings expressed in our open letter.
Instead, the events following the publication of our appeal only confirm the seriousness of the situation unfolding within the agency's institutions. The practice of unprovoked beatings of convicts by special forces continues. There are reports that further beatings took place on 12 June in Dnipropetrovsk Correctional Colony No. 89, and on 3 June in Volnyansk Correctional Colony No. 20 in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The level of justice standards held by the current leadership of the agency is evidenced by the fact that they have nominated heads of regional offices, particularly in the Chernihiv and Vinnytsia regions, for Ministry of Justice awards, despite their actions having been recognized by courts as violating the Constitution and the laws of Ukraine. One can only guess how such awards could be obtained without corrupt practices.
The mythical “openness” of the agency is refuted by new court decisions regarding the refusal to provide information on the activities of penal institutions, while the actions of the head of the agency himself, V. V. Koshchynets, are also being recognized by courts as unlawful. We are forced to repeat: “The lack of reliable information about the activities of the system's institutions makes an objective and impartial assessment of the state of human rights compliance in those institutions impossible.”
Unfortunately, all of the above is happening with the silent consent of you, esteemed Viktor Andriyovych, Yuliya Volodymyrivna, and Arseniy Petrovych!
In our letter, we addressed you, Viktor Andriyovych: “In your name, they promise to shoot convicts and set dogs on them!” It seems, Mr. President, you did not hear this. And this is truly very sad.
We emphasize again: the state of human rights compliance in the country’s criminal-executive system is catastrophic. It is worth stressing that the system’s leadership is incapable of adequately assessing the threats and their causes, as it sees the source of any problems only from the outside. A highly telling symptom was the reaction of the agency's leadership to our open letter. Instead of providing explanations regarding the examples of human rights violations in the institutions, its leadership began a campaign in the media to discredit the authors of the appeal, not hesitating to use blatant falsehoods. The content of the leadership's statements amounted to the claim that no one is hindering human rights defenders' visits to colonies (which is a lie) and that the authors of the appeal do not visit the colonies, which is also a lie. The focus is placed on human rights organizations receiving support from foreign donors for their activities, while silencing the facts about the agency itself receiving significant funds from abroad, for which there are no public reports. The leadership of the agency did not even shy away from accusing human rights defenders of carrying out the orders of criminals, which is complete nonsense.
In our appeal of 22 February, we noted: “Criminal-executive legislation requires significant revision – both at a conceptual level and in its details. The internal regulatory documents of the Department do not undergo proper examination and discussion—neither with specialists nor with the public—and often contradict current legislation and international norms and human rights standards.”
It is with regret that we state we have received further confirmation of legal ignorance regarding the system. It is no secret that there were gross violations of the procedure for preparing and adopting the Concept for Reforming the State Criminal-Executive Service of Ukraine, which was recently approved by Presidential Decree No. 401/2008. This Concept obviously contradicts the provisions of the previously adopted Concept for Reforming Criminal Justice. This not only testifies to the extremely low level of the document’s preparation but also to the secretive procedure of its advancement in the final version, and the blatant disregard for critical conclusions from experts and the public. This document and the procedure for its adoption disgrace our state before the European community and force people to look at Ukraine as a state where personal relationships between politicians and back-room deals prevail, while legal democratic procedures are ignored.
We believe that the accumulation of problems in the system occurs because of the indifference and inattention of the country’s top leaders to its problems, and to the problems of the staff, who have lacked job security for ten years. We reaffirm our conviction that, to a large extent, the cause of the existing state of affairs in the system is the incompetence of the leadership of the State Department for the Execution of Sentences. This is combined with active resistance to fulfilling Ukraine’s obligations to the Council of Europe regarding subordinating the agency to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. Initiatives by the Ministry of Justice leadership to improve the situation are currently ignored by the Head of the Department, as, in reality, the Ministry of Justice has no legal grounds to influence the Department's activities.
We are forced to address you for the second time, esteemed Viktor Andriyovych, Yuliya Volodymyrivna, and Arseniy Petrovych!
We urge you to pay attention to the dire state of human rights compliance in the institutions of the Department for the Execution of Sentences and to publicly express your position on this matter.
We call upon you to:
– demonstrate political will and finally fulfill Ukraine’s obligations to the Council of Europe in the form as they were given, i.e., to transform the Department into a civil service and actually subordinate the State Department of Ukraine for the Execution of Sentences to the Ministry of Justice, rather than imitating such subordination to pull the wool over the eyes of the European community;
– demand from all employees of the agency, starting with the Head, respect for the dignity of both prisoners and the system's staff, strict adherence to standards of social justice, and real, rather than simulated, openness of its activities to the public, in particular to human rights organizations and the media;
– finally abandon the habits of parochial corporatism, prioritize state interests, and seriously consider the question of the expediency of the continued tenure of V. V. Koshchynets and his deputies, who, in our opinion, demonstrate an inability to manage such a complex and specific agency. The resolution of this personnel issue significantly affects not only the agency’s ability to ensure the fulfillment of the tasks assigned to it and the safety of society, but also the image of the President, the Government, and Ukraine as a whole as a democratic and civilized European state.
We reaffirm once again that we will continue to oppose the brutal violations of human rights in the criminal-executive system.

Yevhen Zakharov, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group
Oleksandr Bukalov, “Donetsk Memorial,” Penitentiary Society of Ukraine
Oleksandr Betsa, independent expert on penitentiary issues