An open letter from human rights organisations to the President of Ukraine regarding the veto of Bill No. 4049
To the President of Ukraine, V. O. Zelensky
Dear Mr President,
On 18 October 2022, the Verkhovna Rada adopted Bills No. 4048 and No. 4049, which were intended to implement the judgment of the ECtHR in the case of Petukhov v. Ukraine (No. 2). Under that judgment, the absence of any genuine prospect of release for life-sentenced prisoners constitutes inhuman treatment within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention.
However, the enacted Bill No. 4049 does not remedy the violation but rather creates the grounds for new applications to the ECtHR. The law provides for the possibility of commuting a life sentence to a term of between 15 and 20 years only after the prisoner has served no fewer than 15 years. Consequently, the minimum total period of imprisonment will amount to 30 years, and for many prisoners who have already served substantial terms (in excess of 25 years), this period will reach 40 years or more.
Such provisions are discriminatory, as they fail to take into account the interests of those who have long been held behind bars. Given the inadequate standard of medical care in Ukrainian prisons, the prospect of release after 30–40 years is entirely illusory. International practice and ECtHR judgments — in particular Vinter and Others v. the United Kingdom and Magyar v. Hungary — indicate that the review mechanism must be genuine, and that the recommended period before review is generally 25 years.
Since Bill No. 4049 effectively deprives life-sentenced prisoners of any genuine prospect of release and does not conform to the principles of international law, we respectfully urge you to veto this bill and return it for further revision.
21 October 2022
The appeal was supported by: the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, the Centre for Civil Liberties, the civil society organisation "DocuDays", Ukraine Without Torture, and more than ten other human rights organisations.