Controversial Awards
There have been allegations that some members of Kuchma's inner circle, mainly Viktor Medvedchuk, may have masterminded inappropriate awards of Ukrainian decorations and titles, including the Hero of Ukraine title. Police, according to the Associated Press, sent summons to Medvedchuk on 15 July 2005, inviting him for questioning about these awards. Kuchma and Medvedchuk were also questioned on Aleksandr Bartenev's Hero of Ukraine title. Bartenev, known also as "Major", an alleged gangster, is currently facing legal charges in Ukraine.
Due to these problems, President Viktor Yushchenko agreed to stop awarding state decorations starting in June 2005 until further notice. This move was announced by Ivan Vasiunyk, the First Deputy Secretary of State, and backed by Ukraine's Commission for Decorations and Heraldry. According to Vasiunyk, forty one people were awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine in 2004, with some of the awards being presented during the election period. Vasiunyk said that "I don't think you know a third of these names", referring to those who were presented with the hero title in that year. The Commission agreed not to strip anyone of their decorations, unless Ukrainian law would permit them to do so. Despite the announcement of suspension in giving out awards, two posthumous titles were awarded in July 2005 to Oles Honchar and Vadym Hetman.
The decision by Yushchenko, in his last days in office, to award World War II Ukrainian nationalist and accused Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera with the Hero of Ukraine caused an uproar in Russia, Poland and other countries, including Ukraine. It was condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish groups around the world, Polish President Lech Kaczyński, the Russian Foreign Ministry, Soviet Army veteran groups, and prominent Ukrainian politicians such as Sergei Tigipko and Konstantin Zarudnev. Zarudnev, a MP representing Sevastopol, went as far as burning his Ukrainian passport in protest. On the other hand the decree that had given Bandera the award was applauded by Ukrainian nationalists in western Ukraine and by a number of Ukrainian-Americans.
A district administrative court in Donetsk, Ukraine cancelled the presidential decree on 2 April 2010, that had granted the Hero of Ukraine title to Bandera. Lawyer Vladimir Olentsevych argued in a lawsuit that the title of Hero of Ukraine is the highest state award which is granted exclusively to citizens of Ukraine. Bandera was not a Ukrainian citizen, as he was in exile after World War II, and was murdered in 1959 in Germany before the 1991 Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. For the same reasons the Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeals on 21 April 2010 declared unlawful a former Ukrainian President Yuschenko decree of 12 October 2007 to award the Hero of Ukraine title to Roman Shukhevych, the commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
On 12 August 2010 the High Administrative Court of Ukraine dismissed suits to declare four decrees by President Viktor Yanukovych on awarding the Hero of Ukraine title to Soviet soldiers illegal and cancel them. The filer of these suits stated they were based on the same arguments used by Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeals that on 21 April satisfied an appeal that deprived Roman Shukhevych the Hero of Ukraine title, as Shukhevych was not a citizen of Ukraine.
However, under Article 16 "Deprivation of state awards" Law of Ukraine "On State Decorations of Ukraine"
Deprivation of state awards may be made by the President of Ukraine only if the recipient was convicted for a serious crime on the submission of the court in cases prescribed by law.
The above procedure in both cases has not been observed, and therefore the legal consequences of decisions taken by courts, as well as the legitimacy of these decisions is highly controversial. Moreover adaptation of those cases will create a precedent, in accordance to which several others heroes will be striped of their titles among them the liquidators of the Chernobyl disaster, several veterans of the World War II and others.
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