Ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili plans to live on the Ukrainian-Polish border in a tent if Ukraine’s authorities do not let him enter the country on Sept. 10, Yuriy Derevyanko, one of the leaders of Saakashvili’s Movement of New Forces, told the Kyiv Post on Sept. 4.
Moreover, Saakashvili will be technically unable to return to Poland if the Ukrainian authorities confiscate his passport at the checkpoint, as they have promised to do, Derevyanko added.
Saakashvili said earlier that he was planning to return to Ukraine through the Krakovets checkpoint in Lviv Oblast on the Polish-Ukrainian border on Sept. 10. Ukrainian authorities say they will not let him enter.
Saakashvili was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship by President Petro Poroshenko in July and became stateless in what the ex-Georgian president has said is a political vendetta.
Poroshenko, a former friend and ally of Saakashvili turned political foe, argued that Saakashvili had submitted incorrect information when applying for citizenship in 2015. Saakashvili says that no proof of this has been provided, and that the cancellation of his citizenship violates both Ukrainian and international law.
Saakashvili’s supporters are planning to set up a protest tent camp at the Krakovets checkpoint on Sept. 9 in the run-up to his arrival.
Olga Halabala, a leader of the Movement of New Forces, said at a news briefing on Sept. 4 that the rally would be peaceful and that the movement would do its best to prevent violence.
She dismissed statements by Poroshenko supporters that Saakashvili was planning to break through the border, arguing that such claims were aimed at discrediting him.
Halabala also said that the Movement of New Forces was expecting provocations from the authorities during Saakashvili’s arrival.
Ivan Slobodyannyk, an activist of the Movement of New Forces, said at the briefing that the authorities were stepping up a crackdown on the party ahead of Saakashvili’s arrival. He said the government was trying to prosecute him, and activists of the party had been beaten in Kharkiv and Odesa.
Ukrainian police on Sept. 2 also arrested Saakashvili’s brother David and are seeking to deport him.
«They’re building such a fortress on the border not only to prevent us from crossing the border but also to turn us into a North Korea,” Slobodyannyk said, referring to efforts to fortify the border with Poland. “The government’s paranoia has reached an apogee.”
Null and void
Markiyan Halabala, a lawyer for Saakashvili, said at the briefing that the presidential decree on stripping Saakashvili of citizenship is “null and void and is not subject to implementation” due to numerous violations of the law and procedure.
“Saakashvili remains a citizen of Ukraine,” Halabala said. “He does not recognize that he has any status other than that of a citizen of Ukraine.”
Under international law and Ukraine’s Administrative Law Code, Saakashvili has a right to dispute his loss of citizenship in court and take part in court hearings over the issue in Ukraine, Halabala said.
“Nobody can be deprived of the right to come back to his own country,” he argued.
Even if Saakashvili is considered a stateless person, he is a permanent resident of Ukraine under the law, and has the right to enter the country without a visa, said Nazar Kulshytsky, another lawyer for Saakashvili. According to Ukrainian law, a person who had permanently lived in Ukraine before the loss of his or her citizenship is considered a permanent resident.
Halabala also said that the authorities might try to illegally ban Saakashvili from entering Ukraine before Sept. 10, based on some alleged violations or security threats.
As of now, there is no such ban, according to a response from the Security Service of Ukraine, he added.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities have no right to extradite Saakashvili because Ukrainian law bans the extradition of stateless permanent residents of Ukraine, Saakashvili’s lawyers said.
Secret decree
Kulchytsky said that Ukrainian authorities had refused to give Poroshenko’s decree and other relevant documents on his loss of citizenship to Saakashvili.
The State Migration Service claimed that the documents were at the Citizenship Commission, while the commission said that the information was secret and for official use only, Kulchytsky added.
“No concrete legal grounds have been stated,” he said.
Kulchytsky said that Saakashvili would seek to get the documents through a court.
Poroshenko has refused to publish the decree, claiming it was confidential information. However, Yulia Kyrychenko, a constitutional law expert at the Reanimation Package of Reforms, and Vsevolod Rechytsky from the Kharkiv Human Rights Group say that the refusal to publish a presidential decree is illegal.
Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Volodymyr Aryev has claimed that Saakashvili was stripped of citizenship because he said in his citizenship application that he was not under investigation while facing criminal cases in Georgia. However, Aryev’s claim has never been officially confirmed.
Lawyer Vitaly Tytych told the Kyiv Post that Aryev’s justification would not be legal grounds for stripping Saakashvili of citizenship and described Poroshenko’s decree to cancel it as illegal and unconstitutional.
Submission of incorrect information or lying in the application form can only lead to the loss of citizenship if such information would not allow Saakashvili to become a citizen, Tytych argued. However, being under investigation does not affect the acquisition of citizenship and therefore cannot lead to its loss, he said.
Tytych said that only a conviction for a severe crime could be grounds for stripping someone of Ukrainian citizenship. Saakashvili has not been convicted in any criminal cases.
Other legal problems
Moreover, information on Georgian investigations cannot be grounds for stripping Saakashvili of citizenship because it was known to Ukrainian authorities in 2015, and they viewed them as politically motivated cases, Kateryna Dronova, an editor of the VoxUkraine think-tank’s legal unit, said in an article on Aug. 30.
Saakashvili can argue that due process was violated because the commission’s composition was changed not long before it stripped Saakashvili of citizenship, and because the relevant documents have not been published and have not been given to Saakashvili’s representatives, Dronova said.
Another possible violation of due process is that he was stripped of citizenship when he was abroad and deprived of the opportunity to dispute the decision in court, she said.
Saakashvili could also claim that the cancellation of his citizenship is illegal because it was politically motivated, Dronova said.
According to the 1961 Statelessness Convention and Avoiding Statelessness resulting from Loss and Deprivation of Nationality, a person cannot be stripped of citizenship for political reasons. Discrimination for political reasons is also banned by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Another possible argument is that international law and Ukraine’s Constitution ban the arbitrary cancellation of citizenship, according to Dronova.
Lawyers have also described the Saakashvili case as selective justice since Poroshenko did not cancel the citizenship of State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov, a suspect in a corruption case who is a citizen of the United Kingdom, and tycoon Igor Kolomoisky, who has admitted having triple citizenship. Under Ukrainian law, double or triple citizenship is banned.
Ukrainian authorities have also given Ukrainian citizenship and a residence permit, respectively, to Russian pro-Kremlin ex-lawmakers Denys Voronenkov and his wife Maria Maksakova, who voted for Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, according to the Russian parliament’s site. Voronenkov was killed in March.
Members of the Citizenship Commission who voted for canceling Saakashvili’s citizenship are also controversial. One of them, the Interior Ministry’s State Secretary Oleksiy Takhtai, negotiated a corrupt deal in a video with a person who has already been convicted for the deal. The video footage has been recorded by the Security Service of Ukraine and has been recognized by courts as genuine.
