Human rights defenders to protect Crimean ‘non-residents’ in ECHR

The human rights defenders intend to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights and advise the Crimean people to demand that a bank give denial of service in writing.

As the Human Rights Information Centre correspondent reports, Darya Svyrydova, expert of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, notes that the human rights activists are trying to struggle with the National Bank of Ukraine, who still hopes to make the Crimean people be the non-residents, i.e. actually “non-citizens of Ukraine.”

The paragraph 1 of the resolution No.699 of November 3, 2014, adopted by the National Bank of Ukraine, was repealed by the decision of the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal on September 1. According to the NBU’s resolution, the citizens, who reside in Crimea or are registered in this area, are recognized as the non-residents within the banking and financial relations. After the resolution was repealed, the banks should have stopped to deny citizens with Crimean registration provision of banking services (money exchange, deposit withdrawals, using bank accounts), but it did not happen.

“Unfortunately, we currently observe a kind of sabotage on part of the banks, or, perhaps, on part of the National Bank of Ukraine. The Crimean people address us virtually every day. They complain that they continue facing discrimination as the banks deny them providing banking services. This happens despite the valid court decision, which is binding on the entire territory of Ukraine. Thus, the Crimean people are the residents of Ukraine, while the National Bank has exceeded its authority, recognizing them as the non-residents of Ukraine within the banking relations,” Darya Svyrydova says.

She regretted that the National Bank did not take part in the press conference along with the human rights activists, although such format had been suggested, and did not explain people what they should do in the context of the court’s ruling to repeal the NBU’s resolution.

“Moreover, we are getting the impression that the National Bank instructs the banks, so to speak, not to abide by the court’s decision. The customers have been told that the NBU reported nothing to the banks, and that the banks will continue to abide by the old ruling and that they have not heard nothing of this decision, even if you bring this decision and show it to them,” Darya Svyrydova notes.

Crimean Oleksandr Sedov actually faced such discrimination. On September 9, he went to one of the banks to buy 100 dollars. However, when the employees saw his Crimean registration, they denied him. Oleksandr showed them the court’s decision posted on the website of the National Bank. Then, the bank’s lawyers said they did not know about the decision and would deal with the issue.

“The lawyers said that the announcement on the website of the National Bank conveyed nothing, and that they were waiting for a written order from the National Bank. The currency was not changed, they promised to call back. A week has passed, and they continue keeping silence,” Oleksandr says.

Serhiy Zayets, the expert of the Regional Centre for Human Rights, representing the Crimean people in the case against the NBU, notes that, according to Crimean residents’ testimonies, the banks continue citing the paragraph of the NBU’s resolution, despite the fact that the court’s decision on its cancellation has already entered into force.

According to the expert, the situation shows the progress of reform implementation in Ukraine: you may gain something, you may effectively defend your rights in the court, but the decisions taken against the state authorities can be counted on fingers. The Crimean residents lodged about dozen of lawsuits and managed to win only one of them. However, the only ruling is being ignored by the state. The court’s ruling has been followed by no comments, except for a short message on the website of the National Bank, Serhiy Zayets notes.

“Now we are half step from appealing to the European Court, and I am sure there is every reason for the European Court to rule against Ukraine,” Serhiy Zayets believes.

Roman Martynovsky, a lawyer, the expert of the Regional Centre for Human Rights, notes that cancellation of the Paragraph 1 of the resolution of the National Bank actually blocks the force of the entire resolution as the Paragraph 1 introduces the definition of “the subject of Crimea”, later used in other paragraphs, being condemned by the human rights defenders. The lawyer admits that banks often do not know about cancellation of the resolution. He notes that the most important thing in this situation is to get a denial of service in writing.

“I advise all the residents of Crimea to, first of all, require a written response from the bank, and to be sure to inform our organization about the problem they have faced,” Roman Martynovsky urges.

The human rights activists say that if they are not able to help specifically everyone, who will ask for help, then at least such inquiries will help the residents of Crimea in the European Court of Human Rights.

The human rights activists also plan to create a sort of the ranking of the banks, which abide by the ruling to cancel the resolution, and the “black list” of those banking institutions, which continue discriminating the Crimean people, denying them the provision of banking services.