The first meeting of the Working Group on Development Methodologies of Measuring the Progress of Reforms in the Justice Sector in Ukraine was held
The Commission took part in the first meeting of the Working Group on Development Methodologieg of Measuring the Progress of Reforms in the Justice Sector in Ukraine, which was held on 31 March 2016 in the framework of the EU/CoE Joint Project “Consolidation of Justice Sector Policy Development in Ukraine.”
The meeting was organized to discuss the statement of work for the development of methodologies of measuring the progress of reforms in the justice sector in Ukraine and to determine its content component, and key indicators.
The Working Group included representatives of the Council of Europe in Ukraine, the EU Delegation to Ukraine, Presidential Administration of Ukraine, judicial authorities, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the Ukrainian National Bar Association, NGOs and other Project partners and International Projects in Ukraine.
Mr. Konstiantyn Krasovskyi, Head of the Legal Policy Department of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine welcomed the participants of the meeting and noted that in strict accordance with the Ukraine Judiciary Development Strategy in 2015-2020, approved by the President of Ukraine, major amendments to legislation introduced by the Law of Ukraine “On ensuring the right to a fair trial” were developed. Those amendments to legislation made it possible to restart the work of the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine. Successful completion of judicial reform, the last step of which are amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in part of justice, depends on the political will of the Parliament of Ukraine.
Mr. Krasovskyi stressed on importance of measuring the progress of reforms in justice sector for correction of reforming efforts in order to achieve a positive result.
The experts also made the presentations, where gave examples of other Member States of the Council of Europe with their existing methodologies for measuring the progress of reform in the justice sector.
In particular, the expert from the Netherlands Mr. Pim Albers presented the report concerning the evaluation methods and analytical base of justice sector reform implementation, where he told about the indicators of the courts performance, requirements for monitoring, and the assessment tools. To demonstrate the examples he told about the monitoring on the independence of the judiciary, prepared on request of the World Economic Forum, and the definition of the rule of law level in the work of World Justice Project.
Mr. Dmitriy Nurumov, Senior Adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities familiarized the participants with approaches and methodology of the World Bank in assessing the efficiency of justice, presented other examples of measuring progress in justice and more elaborated on the experience of Moldova in this field.
In turn, the presentation of Mr. Vasily Vashchanka, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Expert was devoted to the rule of law level assessment held in accordance with procedures applied by the UNO, OSCE, World Justice Project.
At the end of the Working Group meeting, the participants discussed the procedure of the Working Group activities and next steps in its work.
