The European Court of Human Rights, located in Strasbourg made the first decision on the complaint against Ukraine related to the loss of control of the government over part of the territory of the Luhansk region. The judgement concerning was published on the ECHR official website on July 25.

A complaint was applied by prisoner Alexander Khlebik, serving sentences on charges of several crimes, including banditry and armed robberies. He was convicted in April 2013 by one of the courts of the Lugansk region and received a sentence of 8 years and 9 months of imprisonment, which is serving in the prison of Starobelsk.

Soon, after the conviction Khlebik appealed to the Court of Appeal, located in Lugansk. But since in 2014 the city was captured by pro-Russian bandit formations, there was still no decision on its appeal. In fact, consideration of the appeal became impossible, because the case materials remained in Luhansk.

Prisoner Khlebik appealed on Ukraine to Strasbourg. He confirmed that the state has violated his right to exercise fair justice in an acceptable time period.  

Judges of the European Court of Human Rights unanimously recognized that Ukraine isn’t responsible for the consequences of losing control over the territory of the Lugansk region. Taking into account Kiev’s arguments that Ukraine has made every effort to obtain case materials, the plaintiff has been provided with an opportunity to meet with the ombudsman, as well as the arguments that the new investigation into charges against Khlebik without access to the case materials isn’t possible, the ECHR decided That Ukraine hasn’t violated the convention.

This decision became first, in which ECHR was studying a complaint, connected with loss of Ukraine the control under NGCA of Donbass.