Head of the Department is a lawbreaker

At the end of 2007, Oleksandr Bukalov, head of the human rights organisation “Donetsk Memorial”, submitted a request to V.V. Koshchynets, the head of the State Department for the Execution of Sentences, asking for information on the methodology for calculating mortality rates in penal institutions. The fact is that, according to the public organisation's calculations based on the department's own data, mortality in the agency’s institutions is almost not decreasing, yet the agency’s management officially cited data showing a noticeable reduction in this key indicator. The information was not provided by the head of the agency, and the head of the public organisation was forced to write to the Prosecutor General's Office to obtain the necessary data. Eventually, he went to court. On 10 June 2008, the Donetsk District Administrative Court ruled on the administrative lawsuit filed by Oleksandr Bukalov, finding the actions of the department head, V.V. Koshchynets, regarding the untimely provision of information to be unlawful. The agency head's actions were declared unlawful by the court. However, the decision had not yet come into force, as it could be appealed to the Administrative Court of Appeal, which Mr. Koshchynets did. The Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeal found deficiencies in the appeal and offered Mr. Koshchynets the opportunity to correct them by a set deadline—22 September—by providing documents regarding the payment of court fees. As of 25 September, the specified deficiencies had not been corrected, so the Court of Appeal issued a ruling that the department head’s appeal against the Donetsk District Administrative Court’s decision of 10 June should be returned to the person who submitted it. Thus, the decision of 10 June has come into force, and the actions of the agency head, V.V. Koshchynets, are recognised as unlawful. In this instance, the agency head's indifference to the public organisation's request for the methodology used to calculate mortality rates in the penal system and his violation of the law did not go unpunished. On 9 October, the same administrative court will hear another similar lawsuit from the head of “Donetsk Memorial” against Mr. Koshchynets—this one regarding the refusal to provide information on the procedure for transferring convicts from the Iziaslav Colony No. 31 (Khmelnytskyi region) after the events of January 2007. The full text of the court rulings and the lawsuit are available in the “Rulings of Ukrainian Courts” section of the Prison Portal (http://ukrprison.org.ua/index.php?id=1214804052).