Representatives of the Commission took part in the fifth meeting of USAID “New Justice” Program Stakeholder Advisory Group
On July 18, 2019, Volodymyr Butenko, a member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine and Denys Kuznetsov, сhief specialist of the Department of International Cooperation of Secretariat of the Commission, participated in the fifth meeting of the USAID “New Justice” Program Stakeholder Advisory Group.
The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the latest developments of the Program in the area of strengthening the justice system in Ukraine, as well as the execution by national partners of the interim monitoring of implementation of the objectives of the Program.
In particular, during the event, the Program presented the results of the application of Court Assessment System (CAS) by Ukrainian courts, in cooperation with public organizations in 2019 on example of Odesa and Volyn Region courts, which main task is to assess the work of domestic courts and improve organization of their work, namely increased productivity, efficiency and quality of court procedures.
In addition, the participants discussed separate results of recent all-Ukrainian polls of lawyers involved in court proceedings, court staff and jurors, and have traditionally taken part in the next third annual survey on the relevance of the Ukrainian judicial system to the reference tests of the Venice Commission “Rule of Law Checklist”.
The discussion culminated in the summing-up and development of recommendations for the Program and its governmental and non-governmental partners in order to achieve common goals in enhancing the effectiveness and independence of the Ukrainian judicial system.
The event was also attended by representatives of High Council of Justice, Council of Judges of Ukraine, Public Integrity Council, State Judicial Administration of Ukraine, National School of Judges of Ukraine and donor community.
Reference:
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) New Justice Program has been operating in Ukraine since October 2016.
The purpose of the program is to provide support to the judiciary, the Government, the Parliament, civil society and the people of Ukraine in implementing judicial reform, taking into account the constitutional changes of 2016 and the Strategy for the reform of the judicial system, justice and related legal institutes for 2015-2020.
The New Justice program builds on the achievements of previous USAID Programs in Ukraine: Rule of Law and Fair Justice projects and uses their achievements to coordinate close cooperation with Ukrainian partners, USAID projects, the US Government and other projects of international donor organizations in Ukraine.
