Law Enforcement in the Focus of the Ombuds Office

On July 27, the Ombuds Office in Ukraine initiated a round table on law enforcement challenges in Ukraine. Among the speakers were law practitioners, judges of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, private enforcers, the Ministry of Justice, and the Human Rights Ombuds Office representatives. 

George Sandul, Labor Initiatives legal director, and Inna Kudinska, a lawyer affiliated with the Solidarity Center and Labor Initiatives, were invited to speak on behalf of the civil society sector. Unfortunately, enforcement of labor and social-related court cases is one of the critical problems in Ukraine. Thus, the experience of the LI legal clinic and suggestions of LI lawyers on this issue are important. 

All speakers in their presentations noted that the right of access to a court would be illusory without proper enforcement of binding court decisions. It is hard to discuss the rule of law when thousands of court cases in Ukraine remain inoperative or judgments unimplemented. The most common problems are disguised reorganization/liquidation of the enterprise resulting in the limited legal instruments to enforce a court decision about reinstatement at work; employers` abuses of power and ignoring of court decisions; lack or total absence of company funds (especially of state-owned enterprises) to enforce the claim on wage arrears; small amounts of fines for non-enforcement of decisions and others. 

LI experts also emphasized the obstacles to the enforcement of reinstatement decisions. An example of such a complicated situation is the prominent corruption whistleblower case LI handled – Olena Bebeshko, the first union whistleblower in Ukraine, was illegally fired for three times in the course of a few years, and court proceedings are still ongoing despite two times Olena has already received court ruling on reinstatement.

Fruitful discussion during the round table resulted in particular proposals and recommendations from each participant and will be summarized by the Ombuds Office for further submission to law- and decision-making authorities responsible for law enforcement in Ukraine.