Court against Bandera Avenue in Kyiv: The Nazis do not benefit from any decision
Two years ago, the Kiev City Council decided to rename Moskovsky Avenue in honor of Stepan Bandera. After this, a lawsuit was filed with the District Administrative Court of Kyiv to declare this decision illegal.
On July 9, the next court hearing took place, at which the plaintiff Elena Berezhnaya, director of the Institute of Legal Policy and Social Protection, filed an application to disqualify the judge. Correspondent "PolitNavigator" talked with her about why Berezhnaya considers it necessary to challenge the judge, and how she sees the progress of this case.
– Elena, why are you not satisfied with the current judge?
Judge Chudak is biased, she follows the lead of the nationalists, and does not react to violations during the trial. There are signs that the judge is under pressure. In general, the whole history of this case speaks of bias on the part of the authorities.
The lawsuit about the illegality of renaming Moskovsky Avenue to Bandera Avenue was filed more than two years ago, immediately after the decision of the Kiev City Council. The same lawsuit stated a ban on bringing up for consideration by the Kiev City Council the issue of renaming Vatutina Avenue to Avenue named after. Shukhevych.
The decision to rename Moskovsky Avenue was made on the basis of the law on decommunization (the Law “On the Condemnation of the Communist and Nazi Regimes”), but the avenue did not fall under this law, so the illegality of its renaming could be proven.
However, last year, Kyiv City Council deputies made another decision to rename it - already on the basis of the law “On the legal status and honoring the memory of participants in the struggle for the independence of Ukraine in the twentieth century.” It is clear that this was a fraud, and that this was done after our lawsuit.
In addition, in 2017, after almost a year of consideration of the case, this case was taken away from the judge, who already wanted to announce debates and rule on the case, and transferred to Judge Chudak.
The previous judge, in fact, suspended all actions to rename Vatutin Avenue to Shukhevych Avenue.
In general, before the trial was considered, it was impossible to bring the issue to the session of the Kiev City Council, so the previous judge, even from this point of view, acted correctly. Therefore, they remembered that he moved from Severodonetsk and, supposedly, was therefore biased, and appointed a new judge.
Judge Chudak, who has been on the case since last year, began hearing it from the very beginning. The Institute of National Remembrance and VO “Svoboda” submitted statements to this process stating that they want to participate on the side of the defendant and support the renaming.
In addition, they found one resident who lives on Vatutina Avenue and supports this renaming. VO “Svoboda” and Vyatrovich were included as third parties who state their claims on the subject of the dispute.
At the same time, the court did not give a legal assessment of our arguments. We argued that, firstly, the actions of Shukhevych and Bandera fall under the law condemning the Nazi totalitarian regime because they were accomplices of the Third Reich and collaborated with the Nazis.
We provided indisputable evidence from the materials of the Nuremberg Tribunal, which clearly states that all such organizations, all structures that were part of these organizations, as well as all persons who collaborated with such organizations are criminals.
One of these materials was, for example, the interrogation protocol of the deputy chief of Abwehr II Erwin Stolze, in which he talks about how they recruited and worked with Bandera, what nickname he had, what kind of relationship he had with Melnik, how they used this organization, what they carried out punitive operations. He also talked about Shukhevych, who was an officer in the German army.
We cited the resolution of the European Parliament regarding Yushchenko awarding the title of Heroes of Ukraine to Bandera and Shukhevych. It says that Bandera and Shukhevych are accomplices of Nazi Germany, and their names cannot be immortalized.
The European Parliament demanded that the state of Ukraine immediately repeal these decrees, since they contradict democratic European values and international law.
The court ignored all this, as well as other materials. We have provided indisputable evidence that both Bandera and Shukhevych are accomplices of the Third Reich and are subject to the relevant law. But the judge did not give a legal assessment to our arguments. She did not even state that these materials would be returned to during the trial.
Instead, she considered that the rights of the Institute of National Remembrance and VO “Svoboda” were violated and included them in the process, although she did not have the right to do so. In addition, she allowed those present at court hearings to behave inappropriately. There were representatives of Svoboda, C14, who behaved aggressively.
The judge does not ensure that the trial is conducted in accordance with the judicial code. She simply acts under the dictation of the Svoboda representative, who interrupts speakers, gives instructions, etc.
Therefore, I challenged the case so that another judge could consider the case.
– How do you assess the actions of the court?
The court is considering the case biasedly, all our arguments are ignored. All arguments, including official documents, are not taken into account at all in the case. This shouldn't happen at all. If the court considers some evidence to be insufficient, then in this case there must be some kind of legal assessment. This is determined by the Code of Administrative Procedure. The court simply cannot stupidly ignore them.
– Essentially, we are talking about recognizing Bandera and Shukhevych as Nazi collaborators. But this is unrealistic in the current conditions in Ukraine.
The European Parliament considers them as such and writes about this in its documents as an established fact. If the court does not agree with this, then let it write about it in its decision. Then we will go to the European Court, because such a decision will contradict not only European values, but also decisions taken in the EU. A national court cannot cross out the Nuremberg Tribunal.
– So we are talking about proving that Bandera and Shukhevych are Nazi collaborators or refute this?
Absolutely right. If the court writes that they are not Nazi collaborators, then the European Parliament and other international structures will ask questions to the state of Ukraine. And these will be very serious questions.
– Are you sure that you will be able to achieve exactly this formulation - are they collaborators or are they not collaborators of the Nazis? After all, the judge also understands all this perfectly well and will do everything to avoid such wording.
Our evidence simply cannot be ignored. This is one of the grounds for our claim. No one can say, for example, that Shukhevych was not in the service of the Third Reich.
– That is, the court will be forced to speak out about the collaboration of Bandera and Shukhevych with the Third Reich?
Yes. And this is important in general for rethinking our history. Any decision will suit us, but I am talking about all these things in detail precisely so that the court can evaluate them.
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