14:30 28.06.2013

PACE completely removes references to Ukraine, Tymoshenko, Lutsenko from resolution on keeping political and criminal responsibility separate

1 min read

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has removed references to any concrete country from a resolution entitled "Keeping political and criminal responsibility separate," thus removing Ukraine and cases of former premier Yulia Tymoshenko and former interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko from the resolution.

A total of 79 parliamentarians out of 86 supported the amendments proposed by the committee for political issues and democracy on Friday in Strasbourg. The resolution was supported unanimously.

Earlier a draft resolution drawn up by Pieter Omtzigt from the Netherlands proposed declaring that the principles of the separation of political and criminal responsibility were violated in the cases of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Ukrainian Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko.

The following paragraph was removed: "Concerning Ukraine, the criminal cases brought against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko have given rise to severe criticism from the international community. The committee is deeply troubled by the manner in which the country’s criminal justice system has been abused in order to persecute political opponents. It considers that in both these cases, the principles of the separation of political and criminal responsibility have been violated."

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