The High Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases has suspended its review of Yulia Tymoshenko’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Ukraine to overturn the verdict in the gas case based on the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights because of alleged problems with her application, according to the Official web site of Yulia Tymoshenko.
"The High Specialized Court has suspended its review of her application because of alleged errors. For two days we have been demanding that they show us the decision in which they describe these alleged ‘errors’, which there can’t be even theoretically. They’re refusing to do so," said Serhiy Vlasenko.
He said the ex-premier’s defender Oleksandr Plakhotnyuk on Tuesday, August 6, asked the High Specialized Court to explain the situation with Yulia Tymoshenko’s appeal. "In the morning they told him there were no problems and gave him the case number, name of the judge assigned to the case, and advised him to wait for the decision regarding handing the case over to the Supreme Court. Knowing who we’re dealing with, Oleksandr Plakhotnyuk also submitted a written request to be informed whether there are any problems with Yulia Tymoshenko’s application. So we were surprised when five minutes after submitting this request the defender was called back and told there were problems with the application," he said.
Serhiy Vlasenko also said that the High Specialized Court refused to give Yulia Tymoshenko’s defense team the court’s decision because it was supposedly send to the ex-premier in the Kachanivska prison. They also refused to give the defense the case files for review. "Therefore, as of today, the High Specialized Court is unlawfully obstructing Yulia Tymoshenko’s case from going to the Supreme Court," he said.
"The goal is very simple. They know that legally they have no other option but to give the case to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has no other option than to overturn the verdict. They’re trying to play political games. They want to hand Yulia Tymoshenko this decision in the Kachanivska prison when her defenders aren’t there so that she doesn’t have time to fix the errors and then they can return the application without consideration," said Serhiy Vlasenko.
The defender pointed out that the law outlines the formal requirements for such an appeal. "By law, the application must include the name of the court, the person submitting the appeal, reference to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, the applicant's demands and a list of attached documents. These are formal things, so there can’t be any errors," he said.
Serhiy Vlasenko also said that Yulia Tymoshenko’s defense will submit an official request to the High Specialized Court for a copy of the court’s decision regarding these so-called ‘errors’ and to see the case files. "These requests will be given to the High Specialized Court every day so that later they can’t say that we weren’t interested in the progress of the case," Yulia Tymoshenko’s defender stressed.
"The Ukrainian government is using the court system to continue manipulating and artificially preventing Yulia Tymoshenko from having her wrongly sentence overturned," Serhiy Vlasenko added.
