AstapovLawyers International Law Group announces the launch of Constitutional & Human Rights Law practice - a unique initiative on the Ukrainian legal market, aimed specifically to help business entities to protect their rights and freedoms that are regarded as fundamental to individual human beings, such as right to property, right to fair trial, freedom of expression, freedom of association and others.

Ivan Lishchyna, practice coordinator, says: "Ever since Ukraine adopted Constitution and joined the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the Convention), the issue of the protection of human rights became one of the most topical themes of legal theory and practice. That became even more so when the Law of Ukraine "On Enforcement and Application of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights" declared the judgments of the European Court to be sources of the Ukrainian law".

He adds that despite the widely held opinion that the human rights are of little use for business community, these remedies and practice may prove to be highly effective mechanism for protection of business interests against unlawful or unreasonable interference of public authorities.

In particular, human rights remedies are irreplaceable in the protection of assets against direct or creeping expropriation by the State and unreasonable regulation of the business activity (Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the Convention), unfair trial (Article 6 of the Convention), and in safeguarding the freedom of speech of media companies (Article 10 of the Convention), etc.

Andrey Astapov, AstapovLawyers' Managing Partner, says: "The concern of the AstapovLawyers with the promotion and protection of rights and fundamental freedoms is closely related to the recent developments on the market, when a lot of companies' rights, such as property protection (for example, the recent boosts in prosecutors' claims overturning the privatisation), due process standards, non-discrimination, etc. are simply neglected. That's why we believe that there will be a great demand for professional legal expertise on the part of the business community not only in Ukraine, but also across our network of offices. Our lawyers have vast experience of representation of business entities and individuals in the European Court of Human Rights as well as before the Ukrainian court in human rights matters. In particular, Ivan Lishchyna, coordinator of Constitutional & Human Rights Law practice, worked for the European Court of Human Rights Secretariat as a lawyer for six years".

For more information, please contact Elena Karchova, PR Director, AstapovLawyers: +38 (044) 490 70 01, pr@astapovlawyers.com