CrimeaSOS: 13 Crimean political prisoners may be left without adequate protection due to cancellation of licenses of two lawyers
14 / 04 / 2023
Due to the annulment of lawyer’s licenses of Liliia Hemedzhi and Rustem Kiamiliev, 13 victims of politically motivated persecution in Crimea may be left without proper legal protection. This was reported by CrimeaSOS analyst Yevhenii Yaroshenko.
“The occupiers continue to intensify repression against independent lawyers in Crimea. Today it became known that at the request of the so-called “Crimea Bar Chamber” the lawyer’s licenses of Liliia Hemedzhi and Rustem Kiamiliev were annulled. At the time the licenses were revoked, Hemedzhi defended 11 victims of political repression in Crimea, and Kiamiliev – 2. Therefore, 13 Crimean political prisoners may be left without proper legal protection”, — says Yevhenii Yaroshenko.
From now on, Liliia Hemedzhi and Rustem Kiamiliev can neither defend their clients in criminal cases nor represent their interests during pre-trial investigations and in courts.
The Representative Office of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea informed that the “Bar Chamber” did this through a counterclaim, when Ms. Hemedzhi and Mr. Kiamiliev tried to become members of this very chamber, because they delt with the cases of political prisoners in the temporarily occupied Crimea.
The repression of independent lawyers in Crimea contradicts the “Basic Provisions on the Role of Lawyers”, adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (1990), which ensures that lawyers shall be able “to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference”. In turn, deprivation of lawyer’s licenses will complicate the right of a detainee, suspect, accused or convicted person to defend himself/herself through the lawyer chosen at his/her own discretion, which is guaranteed by Art. 6 (3)(c) of the European Convention on Human Rights and Art. 14 (3)(d) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
We shall remind you that earlier Ukrainian human rights defenders called to condemn repression against Crimean lawyers.