Court dismisses a claim on Poroshenko’s interference in affairs of Church

Judge of the Kiev District Administrative Court Vitaly Katiushchenko

On March 26, 2019, the Kiev District Administrative Court, chaired by Judge Vitaly Katiushchenko, considered the claim of the NGO “The Rule of Law” against President Petro Poroshenko, which says that the head of State does not have the right to interfere in church affairs and appeal on behalf of all Orthodox with a request for granting Ukraine autocephaly, reports a UOJ correspondent.

First, the court heard the positions of the parties in this case.

A representative of the NGO “The Rule of Law”, the lawyer of the Advocates Union “Mogilnitsky&Partners” Sergey Kovalev, formulated a claim: “to establish the lack of competence and authority of the President of Ukraine to act in this way”.

As the lawyer emphasized in his speech, according to the Constitution, the Church in Ukraine is separated from the state, which means that the President in his actions went beyond the powers granted under the Constitution of Ukraine.

The President was represented in court by an employee of the Presidential Administration, the head of the department for the representation of the interests of the President in the courts of Ukraine Liudmila Konchukova.

According to her, “in this case, there is no public law dispute and in general public law relations between the claimant and the defendant, which, in turn, makes it impossible for the claimant to go to court with these claims.”

“The proceedings in this case are open erroneously: since the defendant in the case is the President of Ukraine, this category of cases should be considered only by the Supreme Court,” said Konchukova.

After hearing the positions of the parties, the judge Vitaly Kotiushchenko announced the verdict: to dismiss the administrative action.

“According to the court, the competence disputes should be considered between the State bodies and, on this basis, the court did not grant the claim,” said the judge.

After the court’s session, Sergey Kovalev said that he understood the arguments of the judges that the proceedings are possible only between equal parties by status but disagrees with him: “The main motive of the court is clear: the President, for example, can plead with the Cabinet of Ministers for authority, then supposedly this method of defence is eligible . But this is the opinion of the court. We disagree with it. We just wrote a completely opposite position in the claim; I don’t want to go into the legal and procedural details now.”

The lawyer said that his side will continue to litigate: “We think differently and we will file an appeal against this decision. It’s impossible to dismiss this claim. By law, this means to negate the Constitution. The court couldn’t have negated the Constitution and therefore it refused on formal grounds. But if this court indirectly referred me to the Supreme Court of Ukraine, then it is clearly written there — Decrees and Orders. And this appeal of the President is not fulfilled either in the form of the Decree or in the form of the Order. That is, if I came to the Supreme Court, they would tell me – this is not for us; it looks like a stalemate. Simply said, the decision is so illegal that it does not fit into the format of a single court ... It seems to me that the court on the eve of the elections does not want to take a decision on the substance of such a delicate matter.”

The opinion of the representative of the President in the court Liudmila Konchukova after the meeting could not be found. She said that “the official position of the AP on the court’s decision will be published by the press service on the President’s website”.

As the UOJ reported, earlier, attempting to delay the court hearings of the claim, President Petro Poroshenko and representatives of the Presidential Administration have repeatedly ignored the meetings and never appeared in court.

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