On December 8, 2017, the Ministry of Justice held public hearings, where the Government’s annual report was discussed

During the opening remarks, Deputy Minister of Justice Serhii Petukhov emphasized the importance of the implementation of the Action Plan and said that the Ministry of Justice continues to select personnel for the Directorate General for Human Rights. He also introduced the already appointed director of this unit.

Bohdan Kryklyvenko, Head of the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasized that the Ombudsman together with representatives of the civil society not only continues to monitor the implementation of the Action Plan but directly participates in the implementation of its measures.

Oleh Martynenko, Head of the Analytical Direction of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, said: “The monitoring of the implementation of the National Strategy has shown the need for several important steps: making changes to the Strategy itself and the plan for its implementation; changing the forms of work of the civil society and authorities; developing simple and objective indicators for the implementation of the Strategy”.

During the work of thematic subgroups, both representatives from Ministries and non-governmental organizations, who provided comments, objections, support in the achievements, have shown active readiness for cooperation. In addition, UHHRU experts made their reports on the monitoring results of the implementation of the Action Plan.

Thus, during the work of the thematic group “Political Rights”, Kseniya Semiorkina, an expert of UHHRU, emphasized: “The proper level of implementation of the National Human Rights Strategy depends on the interest of everyone in ensuring human rights in Ukraine. It is important that all actors of the Action Plan, parliament, and civil society act together, producing high-quality and effective mechanisms for ensuring human rights, using the Action Plan for the implementation of the National Strategy as an instrument.”

UHHRU analyst Bohdan Moysa took part in the work of the thematic subgroup “Social, economic and other rights”. “The implementation of the National Human Rights Strategy goes on at the same time with the formation and implementation of long-term solutions in specific areas. These strategic priorities can complement, duplicate or contradict the Action Plan. During its follow-on revision, it should be assumed that, first, all long-term measures in certain spheres should be considered through the prism of strategic priorities in the field of human rights, and secondly, measures of the action plan should be aimed at minimizing the risks of ensuring human rights that arise during the implementation of reforms,” the expert said.

Analyzing the achievements and shortcomings, Alla Blaha, an analyst at UHHRU, emphasized the inadmissibility of a formal approach to the implementation of the National Strategy and Action Plan, as the reports from the central executive bodies did not provide information on the implementation of many of the measures of the Plan, either in essence or at all. One example: legislative norms on the need to ensure accessibility of transport for people with disabilities are still ignored. Accordingly, it is necessary to comply with clause 108 of the Action Plan and to amend the Procedure for Conducting a Competition for the Carriage of Passengers on a Bus Route of General Use regarding the mandatory inclusion during the competition of the special needs of people with visual and hearing impairment, with problems with musculoskeletal system and other people with limited mobility (thematic subgroup “Prevention and Counteracting Discrimination, Gender Equality”).

Alina Pavliuk, a lawyer of the Strategic Litigations Center of UHHRU, delivered a report on relevant issues related to the protection of the rights of captives and political prisoners (thematic sub-group “New Challenges”). “The plan for the implementation of the National Human Rights Strategy should be updated. It does not take into account the whole range of issues within the framework of the current strategy and realities, in particular in terms of protecting the rights of captives and political prisoners and conducting an effective investigation,” she said.