ODIHR/OSCE final election report – Ukraine

Eventually the OSCE/ODIHR report on the Ukrainian elections from October has been published - 3 days into the 2013 Ukrainian Chairmanship of OSCE.

The report received a measured response from Ukraine, which naturally promised to work with the organsiation it is now chairing for the next 12 months, to improve the electoral legislation still further.

Of the 43 presidential, parliamentary, legislative elections and referendums scheduled for 2013 globally (at the time of writing), from within the 57 OSCE members, 13 of those elections occur within OSCE nations – including some lesser beacons of democratic transparency such as Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Georgia – as well as far better examples of transparency, such as Germany, Norway and Austria.

Ergo, as 2013 OSCE Chair, one would expect that Ukraine to send election observers to each and every OSCE nation holding elections – and thus to have no excuses when it comes to witnessing the good, the bad, and quite possibly the ugly, and learn from them.

Quite how what will be learned, how it will be employed, and to what ends, however, remains to be seen – possibly simply far more subtle cheating than last time!

New parliament but all the parties are tainted by corrupt members

The Ukrainian NGO  Чесно or “Chesno” which has made a pretty good attempt at identifying each RADA MP in the previous parliament with their numerous personal integrity failings in the past, be they issues of swapping political parties, corruption, illegal voting, being oligarchy puppets etc., etc, and has arrived at a similar graphic display for the new parliament, which is as yet to take up its role.

Even the new parties that have never been in the Ukrainian parliament before are not without their nefarious members – due to the fact that politics in Ukraine is not run by ideology but by individual MPs political survival, and thus any party will do if you are a politician who is up for reelection as long as that party will offer you a better chance with them of being reelected.

The net result? – Every party in the next parliament is tainted by previously perceived corrupt MPs amongst their ranks.

In short, of the 450 RADA MPs that form the new Ukrainian parliament, 331 have been previously named and shamed for their nefarious activities.  One can only presume that the remaining 119 thus far untainted MPs, will soon learn the rules of the integrity-less cesspit they are about to enter.

Who wants to place a bet that by 2017 when the next parliamentary elections occur, Chesno will have a figure far higher than the 331 mired MPs which begin this parliament as already tainted?  Will more than a handful actually manage to remain clean throughout the next 5 years of the new parliament?

(Oh and before I sign off for the day, remember this I wrote a few days ago relating to the 2013 budget?  Well today it was passed by the out-going parliament as I intimated it would be, with 242 votes in favour.  The vote breakdown was PoR 187, People’s Party 20, OU-PSD 5, Reforms for the Future Party 19 and a total of 11 independents in favour of the 2013 budget and 69 votes against.)

A best guess or pie in the sky? Ukrainian budget 2013

Although I studied economics as part of a degree in Business Management and Finance many moons ago, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it was not exactly the most interesting of subjects, and one in which I had to motivate myself to maintain a respectable overall end grade.

The fact it is not an exact science, or indeed given recent events with a vast and very varied set of opinions from both well known and hitherto unknown “economists” and little else other than opinions since 2008, would suggest that to many it is not even a science but simply partially educated guesswork.  I make no comment!

Anyway, as is required by law, the Ukrainian budget for 2013 has to be agreed by the RADA before 2013 – which makes sense – other than due to the parliamentary elections and associated shenanigans which dragged the process on and on, the legally required resignations of the current Cabinet of Ministers due to said parliamentary elections and the soon to be appointed new Cabinet of Ministers,  on-going IMF negotiations by Cabinet Ministers who have now resigned and may have little authority by next week despite negotiating now, the gas price from Russia etc., etc., the 2013 budget will be something of a rush job with little time for debate in the RADA and quite possibly little or no responsibility for those who table it should they be dropped from the next Cabinet of Ministers.

Something of a mess procedurally when it comes to time-lines and that is without going into the proposed 2013 budget which is some 461 pages long, all of which are splattered with columns and columns of numbers, issued to a RADA membership some of which will not be RADA members next week and unseen by some successful candidates that will be RADA members next week.

Those personnel changes could even affect the composition of the Budget Committee that has submitted the budget proposal for 2013.

From what I have gleaned from those who have seen the draft budget, the government intends to continue to subsidise gas prices to consumers in 2013.  A stance that will make the on-going IMF negotiations very difficult, particularly as I understand that the gas price foreseen in the budget works on today’s pricing of $417 per 1000 cubic meters of gas.  That will mean the government will have to find UAH 21.5 billion ($2.7 billion) to cover the difference between purchase price from Russia and sale price to the Ukrainian consumer.  Ouch!

Further, an envisaged inflation rate of just over 6% and a US$ to UAH exchange rate of no more than 8.5 are foundations for the entirety of the 2013 budget.  Wishful thinking in both cases!

Possibly even worse, is that this budget is to go to the RADA tomorrow, and that means the almost disbanded current parliamentary assembly may well just vote it through as their very last act before the new parliament sits for the first time.  That, when amongst the current RADA members very few have seen it, and I strongly suspect given the average IQ amongst RADA deputies, hardly any will understand it, thus it seems fraught with danger or nefarious intentions – not that the new parliament will radically raise the IQ level of the parliamentarians or their understanding of budgetary matters.

The question therefore must be, given that the 2013 budget is supposed to be the economic blueprint for Ukraine next year – why the rush to get it finalised at the start of December and with an old parliament when there is the entire month to debate and tinker with it with the new parliament?

Ukrainian OSCE Chairmanship

Ukraine officially takes over the chairmanship of OSCE on 6/7th December 2012 at the OSCE ministerial council meeting in Dublin, when Ireland hands over, and will thus chair OSCE through 2013.

That on the back of some robust criticism by OSCE of the recent Ukrainian parliamentary elections – their final and authoritative report on said elections unlikely to be published before the OSCE chairmanship handover.

Also unlikely before Ukraine takes over the OSCE chairmanship is the swearing in of the new parliament subject to the recent elections and OSCE monitoring, which will be no sooner than 10th December and is more likely be 17th December.

One wonders if the 5 constituency seats that are to be re-run will also have taken place by 6/7th December as well – maybe, maybe not.

One cannot help but see some irony in the timing of all this.

Anyway, the Ukrainian agenda for its chairing of OSCE in 2013 is broadly outlined here.

In the mean time, today, the EU/Ukrainian cooperation committee meets in Brussels.  On that agenda – political dialogue, justice, freedoms, security, visa regimes, economics, energy and trade – much to go at there!

“The Opposition” – looking forward

So the opposition parties in Ukraine have accepted the election results as called by the CEC, with the exception of 5 seats that are to be re-run.  One presumes that having done so, the call for the elections to “represent the genuine will of the Ukrainian voters” as per the EU press statement of two days ago has at least been met – if that is all that has been met.

Thus 5 more years of opposition awaits them beginning sometime mid-December 2012 when the new RADA gets sworn in.

Not that the opposition is united over the idea of accepting the CEC results.  Anatoliy Hrytsenko who has advocated not taking up the opposition mandates en masse for weeks still believes that is the right course of action for the opposition parties a position I outlined last week.

In fact, Mr Hrytsenko has refused to sign a document drafted amongst the opposition parties relating to opposition strategy and goals in the forthcoming parliament, as his blog makes clear.

Further, despite the damning language used in the preamble to the opposition strategy and goals statement in the link above, on twitter at the very same time the opposition direction was being published, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, another opposition leader wrote:

“@KyrylenkoVyach

 Я вдячний особисто кожному,хто був біля ЦВК ці 8 днів і ночей.Не все вийшло як гадалося,але це перший крок,зроблений для майбутніх перемог.” – 9:00 PM – 12 Nov 12

In short, he personally thanks everyone the CEC despite the fact things didn’t happen as smoothly as they could have.

Not a particularly promising or united start when all opposition parties do not feel able to sign up to the agreed strategies and goals or rally behind statements condemning the CEC.

That said, when looking at the opposition goals, worthy or not as they may be, the opposition clearly have not got to grips with what being in opposition means – and that is that they are the minority – thus very rarely will they have sufficient cross party support to pass any laws or amendments to laws that they want to.

Their demands, if presented as demands, will simply be rebuffed.  They will need to be far more nimble, sly and persuasive to achieve any goals they set given the fact they are the minority.  Timing is also crucial as to what and when they submit anything for consideration – something I will come on to.

So let us look at their stated goals, none of which appear deliverable from the opposition benches.

The impeachment of President Yanukovych.  Firstly there is currently no mechanism to impeach a Ukrainian president.  Therefore a law must first be drafted, then adopted – meaning 226 RADA MPs or more must vote for it, a number the opposition parties fall far short of – and then signed by the president and published before it can come into effect.

Any new law could hardly be applied retrospectively if the opposition were to expect any support from the international community.

However, if such a law is to stand any chance of becoming reality, the timing of its submission to the RADA for consideration is crucial.  To simply go away now, draft it, submit it and expect it to pass so soon after an election the opposition lost would be stupid.  More guile is needed than that.

You will recall not long ago I wrote about the “Who’s in and who’s out” within the Party of Regions structure.  For such a law as one creating a method to impeach a president to get through the RADA, it would require some support from within the PoR/Communist coalition.  That will mean the support of those “who are out” and those who are controlled by “those who are out”.

If Poroshenko and Khoroshkovsky are still out when such a law is presented to the RADA, given their considerable media holdings and wealth, should such a law be proposed much closer to the presidential elections, it may find some unlikely and very public support.

Add to that the large number of “independent MPs” about to enter the RADA that were financed by the oligarchy from both sides in their campaigns, those MPs are far more likely to tow the line of their oligarchy sponsors than that of the president.

If the wrong noses are out of joint close to the presidential elections, then that is likely to be the optimum time to submit a law outlining a method of presidential impeachment.  It would stand far more chance of gaining maximum publicity and covert oligarchy support via their owned “independent MPs”.

That does not take into account any international meddling and supportive noises towards any rich and powerful PoR politicians currently “out” who may consider running against Yanukovych themselves – with or without PoR party mandate.  Such meddling if it comes, will not become energetic until much closer to the presidential elections as it is only then that the abilities of the “in’s” and “out’s” are obvious when it comes to “external support”.

Naturally, I do not expect the feckless opposition to consider such things.  I anticipate a draft law on presidential impeachment submitting almost immediately, thus rebuffed, and for the opposition to say “Well, we tried”.  Another false dawn for their voters.

Next they propose to release Yulia Tymoshenko and other political prisoners – somehow.  It is already clear that the only way she (and others) will be released is via an ECfHR ruling demanding her release.  Should she be released it will have absolutely nothing to do with the opposition, but the discharge of the obligations of Ukraine to the ECfHR.  There is no guarantee that Ukraine will discharge its obligations to the ECfHR any more than any other nation does – and many don’t.

They also want an electoral system with open lists.  Quite right – but in this last election the party lists were made public as to who stood in what numbered position on the party list.  The constituency seats by their very nature were open and people knew who they were voting for.

Ergo, if Party X won 50 seats by proportional representation, I can look at the published list and know that those candidates numbered 1 – 50 will now be RADA MPs – plus those from Party X who won constituency seats.  That seems to me to be quite open already.

Then we have a list of heads the opposition wish to sever.  The Prime Minister, Minister of Internal Affairs, heads of all law enforcement agencies, the Attorney General etc.  Simply wishful thinking, as the only way those people will go is if they either fall out of favour with the presidential administration, or the opposition had won – which they didn’t.

Gaining cross party support to remove these people would probably prove far harder than gaining support for a well timed impeachment law, as nobody within the PoR has anything to gain by their removal unless they happen to be next in line for those particular thrones.

Next, the personal attendance at the RADA of MPs if they are to vote for a bill.  This is definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle, but it is a principle that I certainly support 100%.  At present there is a cross party tradition of all colours and political persuasion, with very few exceptions when it comes to specific MPs, that their voting cards are given to others if they cannot or will not attend the RADA to vote in person, so that their vote is cast.

It is known here as “piano playing” when MPs run around the voting terminals with other MPs voting cards in order to register the votes of those absent for whatever reason.

Some leaders of the opposition who have signed up to this strategy are historically guilty of this themselves and thus they will henceforth have to lead by example or be very quickly named and shamed I suspect.

Last but not least, the usual drafting of anti-corruption legislation of which there is plenty already – it is just not effectively implemented.  More anti-corruption legislation will change nothing.  A drive to effectively implement what already exists would go a long way though.

And that is the opposition strategy and goals looking forwards according to the opposition themselves.  All of which quite clearly cannot be achieved – at least on their own – and so feckless are they that I do not expect them to have the patience or cunning to build solid support with those on the other side to get any of it done.  Especially so when Yatseniuk, Klitschko and Tyahnybok will have one eye on the 2015 presidential elections and cannot afford to stand in the shadows of one another for too long.

Ukrainian elections the best of the post-Soviet nations? Setting low standards and failing to achieve them

According to MEP Pawel Kowal, head of the European Parliament’s Observer Mission for the Ukrainian elections when speaking at the European Parliament Committee for Foreign Affairs  a few days ago, the Ukrainian elections were the best of those held by post-Soviet nations.

For a man who should be used to being very careful with his words, that seems something of a careless statement.  I am quite sure Estonia, Latvia and Lithuanian, now EU members, would certainly disagree.

Perhaps he meant post-Soviet nations that remain outside the EU – but that is not what he said – careless!

So let’s have a look at the benchmark for such a statement.  Who exactly has Ukraine to beat in democratic standards to have the best elections in the post-Soviet block (excluding those now in the EU)?

Russia, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

The bar is not exactly set very high to be the best of a bad lot now is it?

Surely if comparisons have to be made – and I see no reason that they do need to be made considering OSCE has a solid framework for such things against which all OSCE nations are scored – it would be better to position Ukraine against the worst, but tolerable examples of electioneering from within the EU nations when it comes to “benchmarking”.  That at least would show the minimum distance Ukraine still has to travel.

It is surely better to be the worst of a good bunch that makes the grade, than the best of a bad one that doesn’t.

That said, to be the worst of a bad bunch takes some doing.

Disunited we stand – currently at least!

Uggggghhhhhhhh!

In the first real test of cohesiveness after the voting on 28th October, the opposition parties are doing their very best within a week of proving my previous statements about their (in)ability to work together correct – in the fastest time possible.

Sometimes I write something in the hope of being proved absolutely and decisively wrong, despite all evidence both historical and current being to the contrary.

When writing from February as sparingly as possible, but as repeatedly as to make the point that the opposition parties simply would not and could not remain united should they win or lose the elections, I had hoped that would not be the case – and yet in their first real test of unity over whether to recognise the elections – or not – there seems to be disunity already!

Over the past week, Anatoliy Grytsenko, leader of one of the parties that makes up the United Opposition has twice called for the opposition en masse to surrender their mandates thus denying the legally required 300 RADA MPs required for a parliament to work.

I have always liked Grytsenko as he has always been a reasonable debater, held strong policy positions and come across and a principled man far more often than not.  However to hold new elections is simply not that easy.

Yuri Kluchkovsky, an opposition MP who should know a thing or two about the election process, considering he heads the Committee for State Building and Local Government stated in relation to new elections and the proportional representation (party) list “Achieving this would be quite difficult.  Everybody on the party list, right down to the last person on this list, must personally refuse to take up his or her seat.  But this will not solve the question because this represents only half the parliament.”

There is then the other half of parliamentary seats won by way of some much disputed constituency seats to consider.  Who may – or may not – decide to personally relinquish their seats?

If all that were to happen then new elections must, by law, occur within 60 days and until those new elections have taken place and the results recognised, the current results from 28th October cannot legally be deemed invalid.  In the meantime the current parliament would continue to sit unchanged as prior to the voting of 28th October.

The as ever non-committal Viacheslav Kyrylenko, who has to be one of the meekest and weakest political party leaders in the history of Ukrainian politics – ever – has said nothing of substance unsurprisingly.

UDAR stated it wanted to hold half the election again.  The proportional representation half, which by and large was far, far cleaner than the very much disputed constituency seat results.

Batkivshchyna has no issues over the proportional representation vote but has serious issues in some 13 constituencies which are still being contested and 5 of which (at least) may ultimately require new elections for those particular seats.

New elections for those seats I would guess will have to be in about a month given the preparatory administration involved such as new voting forms, if new elections are to happen at all.

However, considering Grytsenko’s repeated call, Arseniy Yatseniuk on 5th November stated the United Opposition won’t support the cancellations of elections in constituencies seats where they won.  That same day, UDAR stated it was prepared to give up its mandates if that was necessary to insure the removal of voter fraud – somewhat contrary to what Yatseniuk had just said, but in line with Grytsenko’s original demands.

Ms Tymoshenko, naturally, falls into the Grytsenko camp and thus quite obviously will be ignored by Yatseniuk as whilst what is on paper may say United Opposition, Tymoshenko and Yatseniuk are far from united.

Fortunately for the opposition, they did a deal with Svoboda pre-elections, and as most nationalist parties have, they possess a solid visible protester/rallying base who come out in any weather for any cause Svoboda summon them out for – otherwise the protests called on 5th November by the opposition parties may well have fielded far less than the estimated 1000 people who turned up – which would have been somewhat embarrassing – if indeed 1000 isn’t an embarrassing enough number to begin with.

Quite why there has been such a lack of discipline within the opposition leadership when it comes to public statements over the opposition position on such a fundamental issue will be down to the fact there is really very little unity between them – and far too many egos, all with an eye on the presidential elections in 2015.

Regardless of whether they eventually reach a consensus or not over this issue, and under the law Ukraine has until 12th November to formally announce preliminary results and until 17th November to announce binding results – thus they have a few days yet to reach a consensus – it seems the writing of their continued disunity is on the wall (and sadly as predicted in this blog).  I feel I will lament being right, but hope that this is simply “teething problems”.

Not a convincing start nevertheless!

Answering some readers question from the “So now what?” post – Elections and ECfHR

If I needed proof that people (bless you all) actually read what I write occasionally , aside from the website statistics and comments made, questions sent by readers is indeed such proof.

Relating to this post written a few days ago, I have been sent several questions, and most aimed at these two paragraphs:

“The next major highlighted date on the calendar where significant change is possible (but not probable) will be the ECfHR ruling over Ms Tymoshenko in which it is almost a nailed on certainty her release will be demanded. The caveat to that being the next major date depends upon whether the PoR/Communist coalition will manage to gather enough splitters from the opposition parties and independents to gain a constitution changing majority between now and 17th December when the new parliament sits for the first time.

If Tymoshenko is released, which may or may not happen, then EU/Ukraine relations may improve. There are definitely some within the PoR oligarchy and government (Khoroshkovskiy and Poroshenko to name but two) that will be happy to see her released to get the DCFTA and AA signed and ratified in return. In fact a number of the PoR oligarchy may look to remove Yanukovych and back others in 2015 if Tymoshenko is not released when the ECfHR ruling arrives.”

To answer the first question over whether the ruling coalition will reach a constitution changing majority in the RADA, then it is highly unlikely.  Although counting still continues at the time of writing this, if the Party of Regions does get 31% of the vote then that would equate to about 77 MPs from the party lists.

Add this to the constituency seats where the Party of Regions concentrated almost all their energy from the very beginning of the campaign, by fair means and foul, then I would anticipate about 115 MPs from their party getting elected via that route.

The guesstimated total thus far being 190, plus or minus a few seats.

Add to that the 13-14% of the vote from the Communist coalition party from the party list and we get to within a few seats plus or minus of a RADA majority – but there will be about 40 independent candidates who win constituency seats, my neighbour of whom is one, and he with many others is far more Party of Regions orientated than towards the  United Opposition – and thus there is a RADA majority for the ruling coalition.

However, in what can be seen as a victory of sorts for the opposition parties, united or otherwise, there will be no constitution changing majority – even if every independent sided with the ruling coalition – which they won’t.

Now to answer the more difficult question about the ECfHR ruling and Ms Tymoshenko’s release when it is eventually so ordered by the said court.

Here I will need to indulge in some “whataboutism” which I am never keen to do, but it does show the limits of the ECfHR and their rulings when it comes to sovereigns carrying out their rulings.  To be frank there are very few sovereign nations that do not have outstanding ECfHR rulings against them that are deliberately being allowed to gather dust, or are simply being met by outright refusal to implement the rulings.  Indeed a version of politically motivated selective justice to which hardly any EU nation has an unblemished record.

I will choose the UK for the “whataboutsim”, simply because that is my home nation.

The most prominent current stand-off between the UK and the ECfHR is that over prisoners voting rights.  (And prisoners voting is something which Ukraine allows and the UK doesn’t).  The ECfHR has ruled UK prisoners should have the right to vote.  The current UK government is refusing to adhere to that ruling.  A very basic democratic right being withheld by the UK despite the ECfHR ruling – rightly or wrongly – and obviously there are two very different robustly held views.

But that is not the only ECfHR ruling the UK is not implementing.  The UK currently has 24 ECfHR rulings that it has not implemented, some of which are quite old.

None of this has anything to do with Ukraine, until of course, the UK calls on Ukraine to implement Ms Tymoshenko’s release when it is eventually ordered by the ECfHR.  At that point we reach the inconsistent position of “Do as I say, not as I do”, and “whataboutism” when Ukraine highlights the failings of the UK in relation to ECfHR rulings.

There are very few nations within the EU that will be able to say “Do as I say because I have always adhered to the ECfHR rulings – and promptly.”

“Whataboutism” will be raised quite predictably by Ukraine if it decides not to release Ms Tymoshenko towards nations who themselves do not comply – despite the fact “whataboutism” is no defence for not carrying out your obligations even if others don’t.

This is an issue that of course does not go unnoticed, not only amongst governments themselves, but also civil society and society itself.

The Open Society organisation has just released a report, imaginatively titled “Perspectives of European Civil Society of the Interlaken Declaration and Action Plan:  Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine.“ – Catchy!

It’s target audience – the ECfHR – relating to its rulings and how and if they are carried out within the listed nations and suggestions about how to improve matters.

With regards to Ukraine, it has this to say:

“Systemic failure to Execute judgments:  Specific examples of Non-Execution

Ukraine. The Government’s record of executing judgments is spotty. For example, the Supreme Court of Ukraine initially failed to execute two decisions about fair trial rights, Shabelnik v Ukraine47 and Yaremenko v Ukraine, 48 and the CoM website on the execution of judgments indicates that it is still awaiting information on measures taken or planned to comply with these judgments.49 However, subsequent practice in the Ukraine relating to fair trial rights have improved significantly, and it appears that both the Supreme and High Courts now quash convictions that the ECHR has found to violate fair trial rights. Nevertheless, because the quashed cases have not been retried, it is difficult to assess the full impact.

State’s Persistent Inability to Remedy Structural Problems through Effective and Timely Execution of Pilot Judgments.

Ukraine. Positively, Ukrainian NGOs report that Ukrainian State agencies, especially the Ministry of Justice, prioritize the execution of pilot judgments. Additionally, Ukraine’s Office of Ombudsman is in the midst of reform intended to incorporate national prevention mechanisms.

Unavailability of Effective National Remedies.

Ukraine. The Constitution allows for any dispute to be brought before Ukrainian courts, which are obliged to adjudicate them. However, many remedies are unavailable or essentially ineffective. For example, prisoners, as a practical matter, are often unable to apply to a court or participate in hearings. Additionally, ECHR decisions have highlighted the ineffectiveness of some domestic Ukrainian remedies. For example, in Kaverzin v Ukraine, the ECHR identified significant shortcomings regarding prosecutors’ investigations into allegations of custodial torture by police in violation of Article 3.77 Thus, even if cases get to the courts, they yield flawed results.

Failure to Take Into Account ECHR Case Law

Ukraine. The official Government report indicates that ECHR judgments have become the basis of legislative amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure, as well as other procedural codes and current legislation. However, NGOs note official inconsistency in ensuring legislative compliance with ECHR decisions, and complain that ECHR standards are frequently sacrificed for political expediency.

The “Law on Enforcement of Judgments and Application of the European Court of Human Rights Case-law” requires domestic courts to apply the Convention and ECHR case law when considering a case.81 The law also mandates the high courts of Ukraine to prepare summaries of ECHR case law for the lower courts. While the State report notes that “the Government Agent shall conduct an analysis of the Court’s case law,” NGOs want more, arguing that examples of domestic courts referring to ECHR judgments concerning other States are increasingly rare.

Failure to Establish Specific Domestic Structures or to Consult with Civil Societyto Implement the Interlaken Declaration.

Existing structures are, in many cases, ill-equipped to handle the continuous flow of ECHR-related tasks. Notwithstanding some improvements in Poland and Ukraine, overall the governmental entities that delegate the execution of judgments and implementation of standards to other existing bodies are too weak to properly supervise them. Furthermore, governments often omit Parliaments as key actors in implementation.

As crucial agents in national implementation of the Convention and of ECHR judgments,85 national parliaments should be involved in supervision of Interlaken implementation. Nonetheless, parliaments in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Russia and Ukraine have played, at best, a very limited role in national implementation.

Few of the States considered in this report have engaged actively with civil society as they implement Convention standards and ECHR judgments. Only one of the States addressed in this report, Ukraine, even responded to question 4 of the questionnaire about whether national authorities have held, or plan to hold, consultations with civil society on how to implement Interlaken effectively. Civil society affirms this exclusion. According to civil society reports, only two States, the Czech Republic and Poland, have consulted with NGOs about implementation. In Hungary, NGOs’ efforts to engage the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs by submitting a joint civil society declaration before the 2012 Brighton Conference were ignored.87 In Italy and Ukraine, the Governments have not engaged with civil society on Interlaken implementation.”

Now whilst all those statement stand alone quite robustly in and of themselves, I would suggest reading the report in its entirety for a wider perspective of how Ukraine fairs with neighbours East and West,  It is quite interesting.

Anyway, the question of whether Ms Tymoshenko will be released given Ukraine’s historical dealings of past judgments remains a mixed picture – and why I wrote that her release is far from guaranteed, but neither is her continued incarceration an absolute certainty either, even if more likely.

Neither does it take into account external and internal pressures, both direct from certain PoR oligarchs as well as opposition, plus the international community – and indirect through international agencies that are non-governmental but have distinct political elements to them with which Ukraine must interact.

So we will see what happens in a few months when the ECfHR eventually rules on Ms Tymoshenko just how Ukraine will respond.  Hopefully, it will fulfill its obligations – despite the failings of others.