Lavra lawyer: Reserve with police committing offences against the people

A monk of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Photo: rspp-centre.com

Father Nikita Chekman, a lawyer of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, on his Telegram channel, referred to the eviction of people from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra without a legally binding court decision as unlawful.

"The leadership of the Reserve, together with the police, commit crimes against their own people and will inevitably be held accountable for this. People are being evicted from the monastery without a legally binding court decision. Furthermore, even in the case of evicting the monastery as a legal entity, they do not have the right to evict individuals (monks, novices, pilgrims, seminarians, etc.) residing within the monastery's premises without a separate court decision for each individual. Such unlawful eviction is an offence under Articles 356, 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine," he said.

Additionally, the human rights defender pointed out that "all believers who are unlawfully denied access to the Lavra have the right to contact law enforcement agencies with statements and to court to appeal the actions of the Reserve in order to protect their rights.

For this purpose, it is necessary to:

• record the denial of access to the Lavra on camera;
• demand that police officers identify themselves and present their official identification and record the information using technical means (in accordance with Part 3 of Article 18 of the Law of Ukraine On the National Police, when addressing a person or in case of a person’s address to a police officer, the police officer is obliged to state their surname, position, special rank, and present their official ID upon request, allowing the person to familiarize themselves with the information contained therein without releasing it from their hands);
• demand explanations from police officers regarding the denial of access to the Lavra;
• immediately call the emergency line "102" and report unlawful actions;
• send a Request for Public Information to the Reserve with the requirement to officially report the reasons for restricting access to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra".

Father Nikita Chekman also added that the monastery's lawyers will publish request drafts, statements of criminal offence and a statement of claim with instructions on how to submit it to the court.

As previously reported, the court authorised the expulsion of monks from Lavra.

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