“As to Yulia Tymoshenko, this means that Germany shall guarantee that she will be treated at Charité rather than holding press-conferences at Bundestag,” the Mirror Weekly reports.
According to the publication’s sources, the respective amendments to the Criminal Executive Code will integrate into legislation the procedure to provide “holidays” to inmates who need hospital treatment.
The draft bill says that individuals serving their sentence as well as their family, lawyers and representatives of the penitentiary system will be entitled to requesting judges for “sick leaves” for inmates.
The request should be confirmed by a doctor’s opinion issued by a Ukrainian or foreign hospital. The opinion should state the approximate duration of treatment, as well as a recommendation for the inmate to be treated abroad if the necessary care cannot be provided in Ukraine.
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The time of the sick leave is down to one year but the draft bill allows extention based on a new request and a new doctor’s opinion.
The months spent out of prison are not counted as jail term. After the treatment ends, the inmate should return to serve the rest of the sentence in jail.
Under the new draft bill, the inmate can also request conditional early release due to health reasons based on the respective medical opinion.
The Weekly Mirror’s source also noted three aspects. “Firstly, the suggested changes will cover all inmates. This will allow many sick inmates to get necessary medical treatment which they cannot get in prison. Secondly, an inmate is released the moment the court rules to give him or her the sick leave. Thirdly, the jail term is suspended but the person remains a convict,” the Weekly Mirror reports.
On October 18, the Verkhovna Rada registered bill No3444 sponsored by Mykola Rudkovsky to amend the Criminal Executive Code and the Code of Criminal Proceedings to regulate medical treatment of inmates abroad.
Sources of the Forbes publication report that the bill was drafted by PA staff supervised by Chief of Staff Andriy Portnov. Andriy Husak, aide to Mykola Rudkovsky, denied this.
Meanwhile, the Forbes’ sources mentioned that the Verkhovna Rada will soon register another bill on medical treatment of inmates abroad currently drafted by Justice Minister Olena Lukash.
Earlier, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Rybak expressed hope that the legislature will consider the bill on treatment of inmates abroad next week, which will allow to solve the Tymoshenko issue.
Viktor Yanukovych promised to sign the bill allowing legal regulation of Tymoshenko’s treatment abroad and said that the parliament was already working on one.
On October 4, Tymoshenko accepted the proposal of medical treatment in Germany from the European Parliament’s monitoring mission to Ukraine.
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