Communicated on 14 November 2018
FOURTH SECTION
Applications nos. 23231/18 and 47749/18
Roman Oleksiyovych YAKUBOVSKYY against Ukraine
and Sergiy Ivanovych BONDARENKO against Ukraine
lodged on 11 May 2018 and 3 October 2018 respectively
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applications concern the measures applied to the applicants under the 2014 Government Cleansing (Lustration) Law.
Pursuant to that law the applicants were dismissed from their positions in the civil service and banned from access to the civil service for ten years:
(i) the first applicant for having occupied certain positions for more than a year in the period when former President Viktor Yanukovych was in power and having failed to file a declaration to that effect within the prescribed time-limit;
(ii) the second applicant for having occupied a position in the Communist Party of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1990 and 1991.
The applicants appealed to the administrative courts arguing that the measures applied to them, because they had not been based on any individual acts they had committed, but rather merely on their having occupied certain positions, were contrary, inter alia, to:
(i) the constitutional principles, notably the one proclaiming that legal liability has to be based on individual guilt;
(ii) the principles of lustration endorsed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in its Resolution 1096 of 27 June 1996 on measures to dismantle the heritage of former communist totalitarian systems;
(iii) the Court’s case-law, notably its Ādamsons v. Latvia judgment (no. 3669/03, § 116, 24 June 2008).
The second applicant also pointed out that application of the lustration measures to him reflected the flaws in the Lustration Law pointed out by the Venice Commission in its interim and final opinions on that law.
The domestic courts rejected the above arguments, primarily on the grounds that the Lustration Law was in force and the Constitutional Court did not declare it unconstitutional.
Final decisions were delivered:
(i) on 24 January 2018 by the Supreme Court in the first case and
(ii) on 25 April 2018 by the Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeal in the second case.
QUESTION tO THE PARTIES
Has there been an interference with the applicants’ right to respect for their private and family life within the meaning of Article 8 § 1 of the Convention? If so, did that interference comply with Article 8 § 2 (see, for example and mutatis mutandis, Ādamsons v. Latvia, no. 3669/03, §§ 117‑32, 24 June 2008; Naidin v. Romania, no. 38162/07, §§ 37-42 and 46-57, 21 October 2014; Sõro v. Estonia, no. 22588/08, §§ 56-64, 3 September 2015; Ivanovski v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 29908/11, §§ 181-88, 21 January 2016; and Anchev v. Bulgaria (dec.), nos. 38334/08 and 68242/16, §§ 92‑116, 5 December 2017)?
Appendix
No.
Application no.
Lodged on
Applicant
Date of birth
Place of residence
Nationality
Represented by
1
23231/18
11/05/2018
Roman Oleksiyovych YAKUBOVSKYY
30/05/1977
Yaremche
Ukrainian
Gennadiy Mykolayovych AVRAMENKO
2
47749/18
03/10/2018
Sergiy Ivanovych BONDARENKO
27/07/1957
Oleksandrivka
Ukrainian
Gennadiy Mykolayovych AVRAMENKO
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy