PART TWO
Article by article information

Article 1 The protection of national minorities and of the rights and freedoms of persons belonging to those minorities forms an integral part of the international protection of human rights, and as such falls within the scope of international co-operation.

Lack of Legal Protection

46. In accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine all international agreements ratified by Ukrainian Parliament are considered as a part of National legislation. So, none of the International mechanisms or standards has a priority over the internal legislative acts. At this juncture, the governmental institutions and officials preferably use the Ukrainian law particularly in the problematic situations. There is no procedure when a private person can make the Government or any official implement an international agreement of Ukraine. Only MPs and some high officials have a right to call for the interpretation of the law in those cases to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. Generally, a private person has no right to apply to the Constitutional Court to protect his rights violated by authorities. It is only an individual or NGO may ask for an explanation of the law and only if there are two or more administrative bodies have some contradictions in their practice one which other concerning the interests of the applicant. If they are consistent in their practice even if it is in obvious contradiction to the law a private person has no legal possibility to apply to the Constitutional Court.
47. Another problem is that there is no legal subject, which has a right to call upon to the court on behalf of any national or ethnic group. So these rights which formally recognized for these groups (for instance enjoying of the national celebrations or holidays or the studying the Mother tongue in the State universities or the protection of the environment) can not be protected through the court procedures in the case of violation. The Law on National Minorities contains the term �National Public Associations� as a representative of any minority (articles 13: 14). But the Law on the Associations of the Citizens does not have this definition or term. It means, that de - jure there are no National Public Associations in Ukraine. Those NGOs, which promote the culture of the National Groups legally cannot represent any National group particularly if there are more than one NGO. Those members of any National Group who are not at the same time the members of any NGO have no influence to them. Thus the realization of the national rights and freedoms is depended on the view of the authorities and is not under the court protection.
48. Finally only the citizens of Ukraine shall be considered as a National Minority in accordance with the article 3 of the Law on National Minorities. Those national groups or the parts of the national groups who don't have Ukrainian citizenship are excluded from the consideration totally.
49. Although the Criminal Code of Ukraine has article 66 fixing the responsibility for the violation of the equal rights of the citizens on the base of their racial, national belonging or the attitude to the religion, no one case had taken place on the complains of Crimean Tatars against the Crimean officials.
50. The prosecutor avoids using this provision of the Criminal Code even under a very obvious circumstances, otherwise, existence of the precedents related to the racial, ethnic or national discrimination in Ukraine would be officially recognized. However even from the very formal point of view this provision concerns only the citizens. This law does not protect those members of the national groups who are not the citizens of Ukraine.



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