Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Valeria Lutkovska has refused to comment on the presidential pardons commission's decision to turn down a petition to pardon former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

"I am not a member of the pardons commission and in no way can I comment on this. I have nothing to do with the agency, which makes these decisions," Lutkovska told reporters in Kyiv on Monday.

As reported, on April 27, the Ukrainian presidential commission on pardons recommended that President Viktor Yanukovych turn down a petition to pardon former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

The commission decided that while investigations are ongoing into criminal cases in which Tymoshenko has been accused of committing serious and especially serious crimes have not yet been completed and courts have not handed down rulings on them, the issue of her pardon is premature.

Kyiv's Pechersky District Court on October 11, 2011 sentenced Tymoshenko to seven years in prison for exceeding her powers when signing gas supply contracts with Russia in 2009. She has served her sentence in the Kharkiv Kachanivska Penal Colony since late December 2011.

A court is currently considering a case on the financial irregularities of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU) Corporation, which was earlier led by Tymoshenko.

Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said on January 18, 2013 that the Prosecutor General's Office had completed an investigation into Scherban's murder and notified Tymoshenko that she was suspected, along with former Prime Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Lazarenko, of organizing the parliamentarian's killing.