The court banned the pro-Russian party “Socialists”/Channel 24 Collage
The property of the “Socialists” party and all its organizations, according to the decision of the court, is transferred to the state. However, this decision cannot yet be appealed to the Supreme Court.
This time the court allowed to hear the position of the Ministry of Justice – the session was open. During the consideration, there was no representative of the “Socialists” party, and they did not file a lawsuit.
“At the trial, the SBU voiced several theses regarding the party, which sound like serious accusations worthy not only of the ban of the party, but also of criminal proceedings against its representatives. However, evidence to confirm these theses was not voiced during the trial and was considered. Perhaps there is such evidence in the case file, but we don’t know about it,” said Igor Feshchenko, a leading party finance analyst.
What is known about the Socialist Party
It was founded in August 2014 under the name “Workers, Peasants, Intelligentsia of Ukraine”. The current name “Socialists” was given to the party in February 2015. The rhetoric of the party representatives all these years has been approximately the same – an emphasis on “pro-Europeanism” (the party's program was supposedly taken from some European socialists), slogans for everything good and against everything bad, and criticism of the authorities (both Poroshenko and Zelensky).
The attitude of the party towards Russia
Representatives of the party spoke quite specifically about Russia. In an interview in July 2015, one of the then leaders of the political force, Leonid Kozhara, criticized the Ukrainian authorities with alleged:
- non-implementation of the Minsk agreements,
- isolation of Donbass,
< li>unwillingness to conduct direct negotiations with the “administrative authorities” in the Donbass.
Kozhara did not mention Russia's responsibility for the war in eastern Ukraine, saying only that “the role of Russia is quite high, since the conflict in the Donbass is taking place directly at the borders of the Russian Federation”.
Pro-Russian parties are closed in Ukraine
On June 8, the meeting on the ban on Opblok was closed and the court decision was similar. In addition, the Ministry of Justice filed lawsuits to ban 10 more parties. This happened after their activities were “suspended” by the National Security and Defense Council. Among them:
- “Opposition Platform – During Life”,
- “Shariy's Party”,
- “Ours”,
- “Left Opposition”,< /li>
- “Union of Left Forces”,
- “State”,
- “Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine”,
- “Socialist Party of Ukraine”,
- “Vladimir Saldo's bloc”.
It is not enough to ban a party
The leader of the CHESTONO Movement Vita Dumanskaya said that such a problem cannot be solved by banning parties alone . According to her, the politicians who led and were elected from these parties can create new parties and run again.
We observed this after the ban on the Communist Party and after the Party of Regions “disappeared”. All collaborators and state traitors must be held accountable. Only after a court verdict can they not go into politics again,” she stressed she.
