MIA hosts meeting of Minister with Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

In particular, the interlocutors discussed identification of law enforcement officers in the course of protecting the public order and the traumas received by law enforcement officers and protesters as a result of unrest. There was emphasized that the law enforcement officers don’t hit on the head intentionally, that bullets could bounce and such weapon is not used pinpoint.

Apart from that an issue of attracting of community groups to the protection of public order jointly with law enforcement officers was raised.

According to the Minister, peculiar attention is paid to the Action Plan on implementation of duties and obligations of Ukraine arising from its membership in the Council of Europe, the mentioned Action Plan was approved by an Order of the President of Ukraine.

“It doesn’t mean that after drawing conclusions on the outcomes of implementation of the abovementioned Action Plan we started paying less attention to the issues of observance of the human rights. The MIA still has a department of observance of human rights in the activity of law enforcement bodies functioning,” Vitaliy Zakharchenko stressed.

The principal factor of ensuring correspondence of the law enforcement bodies of Ukraine with the European norms and standards is certainly their reforming.

According to the Minister, the strategic target of reformations is gradual transformation of MIA system into a civil law enforcement department of the European type.

It should be noted separately that to fulfill liabilities of Ukraine arising from its membership in the Council of Europe and recommendations of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights T. Hammarberg, the Ministry is holding constant explanatory work with regards to the need to use pre-trial detention only in exceptional cases.