Human rights in Ukraine


Human rights in Ukraine concern the fundamental rights of every person in Ukraine. Between 2017 and 2022, Freedom House has given Ukraine ratings from 60 to 62 on its 100-point scale, and a "partly free" overall rating. Ratings on electoral processes have generally been good, but there are problems with corruption and due process. Its rating later declined in 2023 due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which led to the enactment of martial law in Ukraine, as well as a labor code that removed many legal protection for employees and small and medium-sized companies, as well as a law that increased the government's power to regulate media companies and journalism. Since the beginning of the invasion Russia has engaged in various war crimes against Ukrainian civilians and the invasion has had a major humanitarian impact on Ukraine and its citizens.
Both the 2015 local elections and the 2019 presidential elections were generally peaceful, competitive and fair, although there are indications of misuse of state resources and vote-buying, and media pluralism has not yet been fully achieved. Attacks on journalists, civil society activists and members of minority groups are frequent, and police responses inadequate.
As of 2021 investigations into crimes against journalists and human rights activists often do not result in convictions, and impunity for torture is still widespread. Gender-based and homophobic violence by groups advocating discrimination are also a cause for concern, as well as linguistic rights of national minorities. War crimes committed by both sides of the war in Donbas are not prosecuted, and in Russian-occupied Crimea dissent is repressed.

Background

Prior to 1991

As part of the Soviet Union, all human rights were severely limited. The Soviet Union was a one-party state until 1990 and a totalitarian state from 1927 until 1953 where members of the Communist Party held all key positions in the institutions of the state and other organizations. Freedom of speech was suppressed and dissent was punished. Independent political activities were not tolerated, whether these involved participation in free labor unions, private corporations, independent churches or opposition political parties. The freedom of movement within and especially outside the country was limited.

1991–2014

In 1991 Ukraine declared independence. The referendum on the Act of Declaration of Independence was held in Ukraine on 1 December 1991. An overwhelming majority of 92.3% of voters approved the declaration of independence made by the Verkhovna Rada on 24 August 1991. Until 8 June 1995, Ukraine's supreme law was the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR. On 8 June 1995, President Leonid Kuchma and Speaker Oleksandr Moroz signed the Constitutional Agreement for the period until a new constitution could be drafted.
The first constitution since independence was adopted during an overnight parliamentary session after almost 24 hours of debate of 27–28 June 1996, unofficially known as "the constitutional night of 1996". The Law No. 254/96-BP ratifying the constitution, nullifying previous constitutions. The Agreement was ceremonially signed and promulgated in mid-July 1996. According to a ruling of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the constitution took force at the moment when the results of the parliamentary vote were announced on 28 June 1996 at approx. 9 a.m. Kyiv Time and for the first time enshrined the obligations of human rights into law.
Ukraine was labelled as "free" by Freedom House in 2009. In their report they stated, "Ukraine has one of the most vibrant civil societies in the region. Citizens are increasingly taking issues into their own hands, protesting against unwanted construction, and exposing corruption. There were no limits seen on NGO activities. Trade unions function, but strikes and worker protests were infrequently observed, even though dissatisfaction with the state of economic affairs was pervasive in the fall of 2008. Factory owners were seen as still able to pressure their workers to vote according to the owners' preferences."
On 20 October 2009 experts from the Council of Europe stated, "in the last five years the experts from the Council of Europe who monitor Ukraine have expressed practically no concerns regarding the important formation of a civil society in Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the democratic states in Europe that is securing human rights as a national policy, as well as securing the rights of national minorities." According to Human Rights Watch, "while civil society institutions operate mostly without government interference, police abuse and violations of the rights of vulnerable groups … continue to mar Ukraine's human rights record."
After the early 2010 election of President Viktor Yanukovych international organizations started to voice their concern. According to Freedom House, "Ukraine under President Yanukovych has become less democratic and, if current trends are left unchecked, may head down a path toward autocracy and kleptocracy." Among the recent negative developments, they mentioned, "a more restrictive environment for the media, selective prosecution of opposition figures, worrisome intrusiveness by the Security Service of Ukraine, widely criticized local elections in October 2010 … and erosion of basic freedoms of assembly and speech." This led Freedom House to downgrade Ukraine from "Free" to "Partly Free" in Freedom in the World 2011. Also in 2011 Amnesty International spoke of "an increase in the number of allegations of torture and ill-treatment in police custody, restrictions on the freedom of speech and assembly, as well as mass manifestations of xenophobia".
In Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index 2010 Ukraine had fallen from 89th place to 131. Neighboring Russia's press freedom was ranked at position 140. The International Federation for Human Rights called Ukraine "one of the countries seeing the most serious violations against human rights activists" in December 2011.
As of late 2013 the situation continued to deteriorate and was one of the causes of the Euromaidan revolution, as joining or even working towards meeting the requirement to join the European Union would dramatically improve human rights across Ukraine. Russia, which had already laid the ground work reacted to the Euromaidan protests and invaded Crimea and the wider Donbas regions.

International and European human rights treaties

Ukraine is a party to the following international treaties

Ukraine signed but not yet ratified
As of 17 January 2013 Ukraine had lost all of its 211 cases at the European Court of Human Rights.

Mass graves found in areas liberated from Russian control

After Bucha, Lyman, Makariv, and Kherson were liberated from Russian occupation, Ukraine discovered mass graves containing bodies of civilians. Victims frequently bore evidence of torture.

Electoral rights

International observers, including Freedom House and the United States Department of State, generally consider Ukrainian election processes to be free and fair. However, there were credible allegations of vote-buying, and media coverage was at times biased. Nazi and Communist parties are banned.

The right to receive a fair trial

Amendments to the constitution, which came into force, were detrimental to the right to receive a fair trial because they re-introduced the so-called general supervision by the prosecutor's office. Other serious problems included lengthy periods for review of cases because the courts were overloaded; infringement of equality of arms; non-observance of the presumption of innocence; the failure to execute court rulings; and high level of corruption in courts. Independent lawyers and human rights activists have complained Ukrainian judges regularly come under pressure to hand down a certain verdict.
According to Freedom House, the judiciary has become more efficient and less corrupt since the Orange Revolution.
Recent trials of high-profile political figures Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Lutsenko, Igor Didenko, Anatoliy Makarenko and Valeriy Ivaschenko have been described by the European Commission, the United States and other international organizations as "unfair, untransparent and not independent" and "selective prosecution of political opponents".

Language rights

Multiple languages have always been spoken in what is now Ukraine. In the 19th century the Russians and Jews were the main ethnic groups in the urban areas while the countryside was mostly Ukrainian. Ukraine has a history of linguistic conflict dating back to at least the 19th century. In 1863, Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Pyotr Valuev issued a circular that banned the publication of religious texts and educational texts written in the Ukrainian language.
The Soviet policy towards the Ukrainian language varied from the promotion of it under Lenin to the persecution of the pro-Ukrainian language movement under Stalin, and tolerance of it which was coupled with the gradual decline of the use of the Ukrainian language and the creeping russification of Ukraine under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. Following Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, the previous pro-Russian policies were reversed and the use of the Ukrainian language was actively encouraged and in certain areas, it was made compulsory. The 1996 Constitution stated that Ukrainian is the state language, and it also stated that the free use and development of Russian and other national minority languages is also permitted.
Subsequent legislation, notably the 2019 Law on Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language, made the use of Ukrainian mandatory in various areas of public life. Exceptions were made for languages that are considered "indigenous" because the speakers of them lack a kin-state, such as the Crimean Tatar language and the Karaim language, as well as those languages that are the official languages of the European Union. However, significant minority languages in Ukraine, such as Russian, Belarusian and Jewish, are neither official EU languages nor indigenous, and concerns have been raised about their protection. For example, print and online publications in languages that do not meet these criteria are prohibited unless they also have a Ukrainian translation, and secondary schooling in these languages is prohibited. The differential treatment of minority languages has been criticized on human rights and discrimination grounds by the Venice Commission, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Human Rights Office.
Russia exaggerated the real language issues, using them to create a false justification for the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. False claims included claims that Ukraine has been committing genocide, and claims that Ukrainians have been shooting people who speak Russian. In areas it controlled, Russia required that all classes be in Russian and allegedly tortured a teacher for teaching in Ukrainian.