10:47 16.06.2017

Justice ministry interferes in free legal aid system threatening to institutional independence – official

2 min read

KYIV. June 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukraine's Justice Ministry is conducting the policy of interfering into the free legal aid system at all levels, threatening its institutional independence and acting not in line with international standards, Deputy Justice Minister of Ukraine Andriy Vyshnevsky said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

"Last year under the initiative of the Coordinating Centre for Legal Aid Providing the Council of Europe independently assessed the free legal aid provision system, and one of the key problems international experts were pointing was too broad powers of the Justice Ministry towards the system," he said.

Commenting on the situation around the tender to select the director of the Coordinating Centre for Legal Aid Providing, Vyshnevsky said that at present the Justice Ministry is conducting the policy of interfering into the system at all levels.

"All facts of illegal interference have been recorded in paper and they have been posted on the website of the Coordinating Centre for Legal Aid Provision," he said.

Vyshnevsky said that in the past two weeks Minister Pavlo Petrenko regularly organizes telephone conferences and working meetings with top managers of the center and the Bureau for Legal Aid Providing, first with unclear goal and secondly, they do not have these powers.

Earlier Petrenko wrote on his Facebook page that the ministry did not interfere in the operations of the Coordinating Centre for Legal Aid Provision and the tender to select its head was transparent.

The minister said that the results of the first tender where deputy minister for public registration Pavlo Moroz was announced the winner will be annulled and a new tender will be held soon.

Vyshnevsky filed in resignation on Thursday.

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