JOHN MARONE, KYIV
A SLAP IN THE FACE TO JUSTICE
Ukraine has been an independent and sovereign nation for over 16 years, its last two elections were called the fairest ever, and earlier this month it was invited to join the World Trade Organization.
So when the country’s interior minister decides to strike the mayor of the capital city, some eyebrows are going to be raised.
Top cop Yury Lutsenko is a far cry from the likes of some of his predecessors, such as Yury Kravchenko, who had the dubious distinction of serving during a string of journalist murders, in which the police were the primary suspects.
More recently, there was Vasyl Tsushko, who stormed the Prosecutor-General’s Office with riot police last year for purely political reasons.
Lutsenko was one of the leaders of Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, which heralded a new wave of democracy in the post-Soviet backwater.
During his first term as interior minister, he led the charge against corruption, going after top officials formerly considered untouchable.
Then when the Socialist Party that Lutsenko belonged to defected to the anti-Orange camp, he started his own party, which helped put the Orange parties back in power after the September 30 snap elections.
Now, apparently his police powers and public image have gone to his head, or his hands.
On January 18, following a session of the nation’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), Lutsenko struck Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky in the face.
They weren’t in a bar after work, or taking part in one of the parliament’s inter-factional scuffles.
According to news reports, the two men were sitting across from each other at a table.
Worse yet, instead of apologizing, Lutsenko has used his office to launch a war of intimidation against the mayor.
For example, in 2003, before Chernovestky had been elected mayor, an automobile he was driving hit and killed a pedestrian outside of Kyiv, but no charges were filed against him.
Now Lutsenko has suggested he will re-open the case, recalling the travesties of justice perpetrated under former President Leonid Kuchma.
“We will conduct a repeat investigation … If it is proven that the young man [hit by Chernovetsky in 2003] was killed from the back and not the side, it’s going to be a different story for the guy who was behind the wheel,” Lutsenko told journalists last week.
In addition, Lutsenko has officially petitioned to have Chernovetsky undergo psychological and drug testing to ensure he is fit for his job.
An eccentric man by all accounts, Chernovetsky nevertheless won his position as mayor fair and square.
And unlike many other Ukrainian politicians with whom Lutsenko has locked horns, the mayor has managed to steer clear of corruption charges.
In short, “the strange behavior during the January 18 NSDC session” mentioned in Lutsenko’s appeal more accurately applies to the minister than the mayor.
And Lutsenko’s threat to file charges against Chernovetsky for provoking the Jan. 18 incident by kicking him under the table only makes him look more desperate, if not ridiculous.
But the greatest damage done by Lutsenko was not to himself or his personal reputation. The Prosecutor-General’s Office has announced that it would not file any charges against him, which is hardly surprising in a country where the so-called elite regularly snubs its nose at justice.
And the demands for Lutsenko’s resignation by the parliamentary opposition are unlikely to have any effect.
Recent opinion polls suggest that most Ukrainians don’t judge him too harshly for his actions.
Even President Viktor Yushchenko, who cannot be called a political ally of the interior minister, despite the fact that he endorsed Lutsenko’s faction in the last elections, has tried to play the incident down.
Speaking in Davos on the eve of Ukraine’s acceptance into the WTO, Yushchenko said the two officials should settle their differences like men.
“This conflict can only be solved by two people, the minister and the mayor,” he told an international press conference.
The president’s words may have felt like a breath of fresh air to Westerners, especially Americans, who are continually under threat of being sued.
But Lutsenko is not an ordinary citizen. Moreover, he is subject to particularly high standards, as he has pledged to root out lawlessness and corruption in his country.
How can he expect Ukrainians and others to back his campaign to make his country’s oligarchs equal before the law, when he flaunts it himself?
The real damage done by Lutsenko’s blow was best expressed at the same event in Davos by Ukraine’s richest man Rinat Akhmetov.
“The main thing now is that the police don’t follow the example of their minister, and start beating their fellow citizens,” remarked Akhmetov, whose political and financial authority Lutsenko had challenged during his first tour as interior minister.
Akhmetov is a lawmaker in the parliamentary opposition, which is just three seats short of a majority.
The Orange parties’ hold on power is tenuous enough and largely due to the fact that a majority of Ukrainians believes that Orange leaders like Lutsenko are more just and democratic than their opponents.
If President Yushchenko should again find himself in a constitutional struggle for executive power with his political opponents, the contest will again be decided by public perceptions of justice in the long run, and law-enforcement bodies in the short run.
As Lutsenko has threatened to re-open the case against Chernovetsky, so is he vulnerable to such shenanigans himself.
The announcement by the Prosecutor-General’s Office to close its criminal case in the January 18 incident suggests just such an outcome.
“At the moment no investigative activities are envisioned,” the head of the PGO’s main investigative department told a briefing in Kyiv.
As for Chernovetsky, he is politicizing the incident to his advantage.
The mayor announced on January 29 that the appeals of any citizens of Kyiv who felt they had been abused by the police would be handled by him personally.
“I believe that the individual rights of Kyivens are more important than the individual interests of any bureaucrat, whether he is wearing a badge or not.”
And whether Lutsenko or anyone else likes it, Chernovestky is right.
“If the interior minister is proud of his behavior, and his actions are not properly judged by the parliament and other high state bodies, this is not only against common sense and the law, but it’s dangerous for society.”
After all, it’s not only Chernovetsky who got a slap in the face but Ukrainian justice, too.
John Marone, a columnist of Eurasian Home website, Kyiv, Ukraine
February 15, 2008
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