Poroshenko is urged not to sign a draft bill with a falsified rule on the election of the Ombudsman

In an open appeal human rights defenders urge President Petro Poroshenko not to sign the draft bill “On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine” that was handed over from the Verkhovna Rada, which provides for an open vote procedure for the Ombudsman’s candidacy, although 227 deputies have supported the secret voting procedure for election of the Ombudsman.

As stated in an open appeal to the President which has already been signed by the leaders of 9 public human rights organizations, in particular, the international organization Amnesty International, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, the Human Rights Information Centre, the Center for Civil Liberties and others.

Authors of the appeal remind that on July 13, the Parliament has adopted the Law of Ukraine “On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine” under the number 6427-d as a whole. This was preceded by a discussion of the amendment voiced by People’s Deputy Olga Chervakova, which concerned the preservation of the procedure of secret voting for candidates for the position of Ombudsman.

“Despite the fact that the number of the amendment was wrongly named, the text of the verbatim clearly stated the concrete essence of this proposal. 227 people’s deputies supported it during the vote”, – the human rights defenders noted.

According to the authors of the appeal, immediately after the consideration of this agenda item, information on the voting results was displayed on the official website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine as a vote for a proposal to the bill. But in a few minutes it was changed to another, incorrect correction, which does not correspond to the essence of the proposed proposal and a vote on this proposal was never held.

“In our opinion, such actions are an attempt of manipulation by the Verkhovna Rada apparatus for further falsification of the text of the adopted bill and the logical continuation of closed political bidding that began around the election of a new Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in May this year. Since, the procedure for election of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights should not be considered as a part of the draft law on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine at all”, – human rights defenders are convinced.

In their opinion, it is obvious that certain political forces are attempting to politicize the Ombudsman’s post in favor of party interests, which, in fact, casts doubt on the independence and impartiality of the newly elected Commissioner regarding the political forces that lobbied his election.

“We appeal to you with a call to prevent the politicization of the Ombudsman’s position in favor of party interests by falsifying the vote results”, – as authors of the appeal have stated.

Human rights defenders remind that they have addressed Andriy Parubiy, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, with an appeal to take notice of these manipulations. However, on July 19 they have received information that the draft bill in an incorrect form was sent to the President to sign, with the formulation on changing the voting procedure for Ombudsman candidates from secret voting to open voting.