Public Integrity Council created
On December 17, 2018, on the High Qualification Commission of Judges premises representatives of several NGOs met to elect new Public Integrity Council (PIC) members. As the HQCJ concluded, the meeting was held in full accordance with the law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges”.
Based on the results of the meeting, representatives of 11 NGOs composed the new Public Integrity Council. Those are “The Center for Democracy and Rule of Law”, “The Center of Policy and Legal Reform”, “The New Country Civil Platform”, “Civic Lustration Committee”, “Ukrainian Bar Association”, “Center-UA”, “The Center for Civil Liberties”, “CrimeaSOS” Association, “The Center for Economic Strategy”, “De Jure Foundation”, “The Ukrainian Center for European Policies”.
The 20 new members of the PIC are:
- Vadym Valko
- Yevhen Vorobiov
- Mykhailo Zhernakov
- Andrii Kuibida
- Andrii Kulibaba
- Anton Marchuk
- Roman Maselko
- Volodymyr Mishchenko
- Yevhenia Motorevska
- Dmytro Ostapenko
- Denys Savchenko
- Andrii Savchuk
- Maksym Sereda
- Roman Smaliuk
- Natalia Sokolenko
- Dmytro Strygun
- Roman Sukhostavets
- Halyna Chyzhyk
- Taras Shepel
- Oleh Yakymiak
For reference. According to Article 87 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges”, the Public Integrity Council contributes to the High Qualification Commission of Judges’ activities by assisting in evaluation of judges (judicial candidates), in particular, their conformity with the criteria of professional ethics and integrity.
The PIC elected on December 17, 2018 is the second PIC board of public activists. The first one was elected on November 11, 2016, with the term of office expired last November. During these two years, the PIC participated in the qualification evaluation procedures for judges of the newly created Supreme Court and other courts.
In 2017, the PIC provided 134 opinions on judicial candidates to the Supreme Court. About 80% of candidates to the Supreme Court who got negative opinions by the PIC members were not admitted to the final rating.
According to the HQCJ information, during other evaluation procedures the PIC drew up 82 opinions, of which only 47 were sent to the Commission. It constitutes 4% of total (1948) amount of judges evaluated by the HQCJ in the same period.
Besides, 35 PIC opinions were published solely on PIC’s web site, having never been sent for the HQCJ examination in due manner. Nevertheless, the HQCJ considered these conclusions too.
As for judges, who were properly evaluated by the PIC members, the HQCJ made decisions as follows:
- 36 judges proved their conformity with the criteria applicable for their positions (opinions on 19 candidates were sent in with considerable delay, that is, on the day of interview with the candidates or later);
- 6 judges did not prove their conformity with the criteria applicable for their positions;
- for 7 judges evaluation procedures were suspended;
- for 28 judges evaluation procedures were adjourned;
- 4 judges resigned before the end of evaluation procedures;
- 1 judge was not interviewed.
To date, 175 judges did not prove their conformity with evaluation criteria and have been deemed unable to administer justice. 70 of them did not pass integrity and ethics examination. Only 6 of those got the PIC negative opinions, for the rest 64, the integrity evaluation was held solely by the HQCJ members.
