At the July 11 morning plenary session, Iryna Herashchenko, the Ukrainian Parliament’s First Vice-Speaker, the Presidential envoy for peaceful settlement of the Donetsk-Luhansk clash, offered parliamentarians to work out mechanisms of transitional justice for Ukraine based on best practices from around the world.
"It is important for us today to study the experience of the post-conflict settlement in Croatia, Colombia and other countries in order to develop appropriate mechanisms to be applied after demilitarization of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine," said I. Herashchenko.
The politician stressed that such mechanisms should include an inclusive dialogue with Ukrainians from the mentioned territories and a legal responsibility of the Russia-controlled militants for perpetrating crimes in the territory of Ukraine.
Iryna Herashchenko reminded that on July 3 there had taken place a Minsk platform meeting participated by the former interior minister of Colombia Juan Fernando Cristo, who also was a plenipotentiary negotiator in the Havana negotiation process between the Colombian government and the FARC insurgent group. He worked over the peace deal and implementation of the legal reforms as well. Particular heed was paid to the issue of Colombia’s transitional justice.
According to the First Vice-Speaker, despite the fundamental differences between the conflict in Colombia and the situation in Ukraine caused by the Russian aggression, Colombia’s peaceful settlement experience is also of importance to Ukraine, as regards legal responsibility of militants, implementation of a legislative pardon, creation of a register of victims of a conflict and paying reparations particularly.
“I have proposed that Ukrainian members of parliament within the framework of the Minsk platform work out transitional justice mechanisms Ukraine is in need of, taking into account best practices of the world,” stated the politician.
Closing the meeting, the TCG’s humanitarian subgroup representative Iryna Herashchenko notified those present that as of July 11 there had been no response from the Russian side regarding the 5 July Ukrainian reciprocal release offer for 36 Russian citizens, detained or convicted for offences against Ukraine’s territorial integrity, versus the Kremlin’s political detainees.