ECHR refuses to accept ex-pres. Saakashvili’s lawsuit against Ukraine

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday refused to accept the lawsuit of Mikheil Saakashvili, the currently imprisoned former president of Georgia, against Ukraine, over his deprivation of Ukrainian citizenship and expulsion from the country in 2017. 

The court said the applicant had not used all domestic levers before applying it with the complaint, in which Saakahsvili claims the former Ukrainian authorities had violated several articles of the European convention in relation to him, including the right to liberty and security, the presumption of innocence, the use of effective means of legal protection, and the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.

Saakashvili, who was arrested in Tbilisi in October 2021 on his clandestine return after eight years, left Georgia in 2012, after the expiration of his second term as the country’s president. 

In 2015, he was granted Ukrainian citizenship by the then President Petro Poroshenko and appointed as the head of Odessa District Administration. Following controversies with his former ally, Saakashvili left the post in November 2016, accusing Poroshenko of corruption. 

In July 2017, Poroshenko stripped Saakashvili of Ukrainian citizenship. Later he was expelled to Poland.

In May 2019, the newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy restored Saakashvili’s citizenship and he returned to Ukraine, where he was appointed the head of the Executive Committee for Reforms.