Roman Zvarych
Роман Михайлович Зварич |
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| 9 Minister of Justice of Ukraine | |
| 7 Minister of Justice of Ukraine | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 20, 1953 |
| Occupation | Politician |
Roman Mykhailovych Zvarych (Ukrainian: Роман Михайлович Зварич; born 1953) is a Ukrainian politician. A former United States citizen, he was one of the first people to relinquish that citizenship in order to take up Ukrainian citizenship after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Zvarych was born in Yonkers, New York to Soviet émigré parents who came to the United States during World War II. In later interviews, he says that at age fifteen he swore an oath to "achieve Ukrainian statehood or ... die fighting for it". In 1976 he earned a B.A. with honors from Manhattan College in Bronx, New York.
Zvarych moved to Ukraine in 1991 with the intention of pursuing an academic career, but soon after became involved in politics. In 1992, he and Slava Stetsko founded the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, a right-wing party. He renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1995. Along with fellow politician Ivan Lozowy this made him one of the first former Americans to renounce U.S. citizenship in favour of Ukrainian citizenship. A notification confirming his loss of citizenship appeared in the Federal Register in June 1997 with his name listed as "Roman Mychajlo Zwarycz".
Zwarych ran for a seat in the 1994 election for a single-mandate seat representing a district of Kyiv in the Verkhovna Rada, and received 70% of the vote but was not elected due to his failure to meet the voter turnout threshold of 50% mandated by the electoral law at the time. He was eventually elected in the 1998 election from a party-list proportional district. Thereafter he sat in the Verkhovna Rada for six years, serving on various committees including the Committee on Legal Reform and the Committee on European Integration. Outside of the Verkhovna Rada he also moonlighted as a lawyer; Ukrainian courts had no requirement for practitioners of law to hold certifications or pass a bar examination. On one occasion Zvarych successfully defended a family against eviction. More importantly, during the Orange Revolution in the midst of the 2004 presidential election, he successfully argued a case on behalf of Viktor Yushchenko to prevent the creation of Ukrainian voting districts for Ukrainians in Russia.
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