No artifacts for at least a year
A trial is ongoing in Amsterdam, regarding the future of Crimean exhibits. It started two months ago. The first important decision the court had to make was determining whether to allow Ukraine and the Netherlands to participate in it; the main litigants are Allard Pierson Museum, which held the display “Crimea – Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” and where the artifacts still remain, and four museums of Crimea, which demand the artifacts’ return to the peninsula. On April 8 the court decided to admit Ukraine to the trial, but not the Netherlands. Ukrainian Ministry of Justice is still working out that decision in order to understand its reasons – however, they reassure that the existing arguments are enough to win the trial and return the artifacts to Ukraine, and not the occupied Crimea.
Furthermore, the Dutch law acknowledges the government’s right for appeal in such cases. “We will be able to definitely assess the Netherlands’ participation only after the allotted time for appeals runs out. In any case, we still have at our disposal the letter of guarantee from the Netherlands MFA, stating that all of the artifacts belong to Ukraine; we also have the support from the Ministry of Culture of the Netherlands,” told The Day Olha Kostyshyna, deputy head of the interagency group, head of the department of Ministry of Justice for state representation in international and foreign courts. According to the preliminary version (the court decision is still being translated from Dutch), the court saw no direct connection of the Netherlands government to the case between Crimean museums and Allard Pierson Museum, as both parties are private entities.
Now Ukraine has time until May 20 to prepare all its arguments and put them on paper. It is yet unknown what were the time limits for other litigants; the date of the hearings has not been set as well. “After allowing our participation, the court now has to arrange the procedural schedule. Perhaps we will be notified when both the Crimean museums and Allard Pierson Museum express their views on the matter. As explained by legal advisors, the litigation is indeed slow in that country; there are great delays in terms of legal procedures – two months were needed to arrange our admission, the deadline for it had been until April 1 and yet the decision was postponed for one more week. According to the advisors, it will take no less than a year to settle the case,” said Kostyshyna.
Therefore Ukraine tries to resolve the dispute out of court, the Ministry of Justice maintain what it told The Day earlier – that they want to negotiate directly with the Amsterdam museum. The officials expect their stance to change (certainly, in our favor) after Ukraine has been officially admitted to the trial.
The “Crimea – Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” exhibition had taken place at Allard Pierson Museum in the Netherlands from February through September 2014. On display there had been the artifacts from five Ukrainian museums, four of which are located in Crimea. The conflict around the exhibition arose after the Crimea annexation.
Inna LYKHOVYD
