Yanukovych's family to file lawsuit against Ukrainian government
Viktor Yanukovich’s family has taken legal steps towards recovering compensation from Ukraine for legal expenses incurred by their family while challenging sanctions imposed against the former Ukrainian Preesident. “My father and I have taken legal steps towards recovering these funds from Ukraine,” Oleksandr Yanukovich (the elder son of Viktor Yanukovich) said, as reported by RBC.
On March 25th, the former Minister of Justice of Ukraine, Olena Lukash, reported that the EU Court granted compensation to Viktor Yanukovich and his two sons, Oleksandr and Viktor (who died in March 2015), in the amount of $80 thousand each. She wrote this information on her Facebook page. It covers the expenses incurred by the Yanukovich’s family members for the lawyers during the case on challenging the sanctions imposed by the European Union.
The following day, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine denied the words of Lukash in its official statement, describing it as a figment of her imagination. “No decisions of the European Court on the recovery of at least one single penny, not to mention 6.3 million UAH, were made,” the statement said. In 2014, after the imposition of the sanctions, Yanukovich’s family challenged it in a court in Luxembourg.
In the fall of 2014, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine decided to enter the judicial proceedings in all three cases in the EU court, as explained in the comment of Oleksandr Yanukovich. “Having analyzed the statements of the Ministry of Justice, we along with English lawyers have prepared and filed objections to the EU court for the entry of the Ministry of Justice to our judicial proceedings.”
“The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine decided to withdraw its statements on the entry to the judicial proceedings before consideration of our objections. As the English lawyers have spent the necessary time for the appeal to the statements of the Ministry of Justice, the application was filed by the lawyers in order to make the Ministry of Justice liable for expenses incurred for the lawyers in this part of the judicial proceeding,” the statement of the elder son of the former President of Ukraine said.
It was mentioned in the comment that the decision on granting compensation was taken on the 11th of March, 2015. In October of 2015, the lawyers of Yanukovich’s family published the official press release on the decision, taken by the court. Oleksandr Yanukovich noted that the same information is published on the court’s website, citing the example of the decision on the case of his father.
It was confirmed in the official statement of the Ministry of Justice that Ukraine had filed an application for access to the above-mentioned cases in 2014. “The Ukrainian side has been able to build an effective mechanism of cooperation with the representatives of the EU, who followed these cases, as reported in the Ministry’s statement. Viktor Yanukovich left his position as the President of Ukraine in Spring 2014 after numerous protests.”
A number of criminal cases, including the case on usurpation of authority, were initiated against him. In March, the European Union imposed sanctions against the former President of Ukraine and a number of officials from his circle.