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Transitional justice in Donbas: Reznikov explains shifting away from "collaborator" concept

02/26/2021 01:29:50 pm
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Draft law on the transitional period will not contain the word "collaborator" due to the fact that this concept is not recognized as a legal category in international law and international judicial institutions. This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister - Minister for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories Oleksii Reznikov in a comment to the Dom channel.

"I know for sure, because I checked that international law, humanitarian approaches and international judicial institutions do not recognize the concept of "collaborator" as a legal category. Therefore, we run the risk that we will lose in the ECHR after the adoption of such legislation", - he noted.

At the same time, there are other legal categories that do not need to be invented, in particular high treason.

"This is high treason or other categories of crimes. Therefore, international law says that if you believe that someone who helps the occupation regime to the detriment of his/her state, but does not qualify for high treason by all indications, may fall under lustration restrictions. We have legislation on lustration, it requires some modernization. We propose to talk about this in the draft law on the state policy of transitional period and make an individual approach with judicial control. Therefore, I repeat once again: I am against the word "collaborator" as a legal category", - Reznikov told.

He added that many people who live in the occupied territories are hostages of the occupation regime, so they cannot be called collaborators.

"I personally spoke about the need to adopt such a law, I spoke about this in my speech from the rostrum of the Verkhovna Rada, but today, when I worked with experts, we made sure that the word "collaborator" should not be used in a legal context. That is why I publicly said that I did not even insert it into the bill", - Reznikov summed up.

As reported by OstroV, the draft law on the state policy of transition period will be finalized and submitted to the Verkhovna Rada in 4-6 months.