Under the cover of European integration, the government has pushed lobbied initiatives through parliament

Public activist Kostyantyn Lavrov having fought against MAKO Donetsk Construction Company owned by Oleksandr Yanukovych was sentenced to five-year imprisonment. Novosti Donbassa reports

Ukrainian courts rarely make rulings for the benefit of opposition

While more and more countries abolish death penalty, most people in authoritarian countries still strongly support execution

Kyiv and Strasbourg have recently been engaged in active dialogue — PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon visited Ukraine, and Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Pshonka travelled to the main office of the Council of Europe. The Ukrainian Week asked Ukraine's Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, Mykola Tochytskyi, about the outcome and context of this dialogue.

Despite overall positive responses from international experts, the new Criminal Procedure Code contains many pitfalls in terms of practical implementation in Ukraine

The Danish government is granting political asylum to former Defence Minister Valeriy Ivashchenko. In an exclusive interview for The Ukrainian Week, Mr. Ivashchenko talks about renewed pressure from Ukrainian prosecution and fear for his family as his motivation for leaving Ukraine

The Robert Schuman Foundation is one of the few European think tanks that systematically pays attention to Ukraine’s affairs. Its president, Jean-Dominique Giuliani, has personally come to Ukraine on a number of occasions. In his interview for The Ukrainian Week he looks at how Kyiv has failed to meet the standards of a rule-of-law state and offers his view on the persecution of former members of the government in the country.

Innocent people trapped in the grindstones of Ukraine’s law enforcement machine often have only two options: admit their guilt and end up behind bars, or spend a long time proving their innocence and get released as invalids

Passed hastily at night, the new Code of Criminal Procedure was supposed to be a demonstrative adaptation to international standards that will conceal broader opportunities for those in power to continue political repression in the Ukrainian reality

Ukraine is governed by prison rules

The euphoria over the Law “On Access to Public Information” is gradually evaporating

The Constitutional Court is bringing social policy out of the legislative field to be manually managed by the government. This signals preparations for the election

The Constitutional Court is losing its reputation as an independent arbiter and is turning into yet another component of the presidential hierarchy

Several law enforcement officers who were responsible for producing cases against Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko have been promoted. Intriguingly, almost all of them have been moved to Ivano-Frankivsk

Thomas Hammarberg, the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, talks about his mission in Ukraine, the local judiciary system and the Tymoshenko case

Valentyna Telychenko: "Dependent courts are a bigger problem for Ukraine than the imperfect Criminal Code"

Those in power have removed all barriers from the path to a loyal Supreme Court

The government has failed to convince either Ukrainians or the international community that the Tymoshenko case has nothing to do with politics. The Ukrainian Week asks Europeans their opinion on the trial against former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko and the situation in Ukraine

The Ukrainian Week publishes the resolution to be offered for approval at the Council of Europe session on 26 January

There is every reason to believe that the court of appeals will deliver the same guilty verdict in the Yulia Tymoshenko case as the initial court did

Bohdan A. Futey, Judge of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, discusses Ukrainian judicial problems and constitutional reform

Court fees have been greatly increased in Ukraine. This will ease the financial situation of courts but will also limit court access for most citizens

Unable to replace the Chief Justice of Ukraine directly, the government is now seeking alternative methods

Valentyna Telychenko: “We are dangerously close to the critical line, when because of the distrust of the judiciary, disputes will be not be resolved in the courts”

Ukraine’s justice system was overhauled (see UW, Is. 21, 29/2010) after the law on the judicial system and the status of judges was passed and regulations about the Supreme Council of Justice were amended almost a year ago

A radical judicial reform in Georgia has resulted in an objective, corruption-free justice system