Council of Europe will evaluate results of judicial reform over the past four years – advisory meeting with CoE international experts took place in the Commission
On 04 July 2018, an advisory meeting of the Commission’s leadership with international experts of the CoE Project “Supporting Ukraine in the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights” was held at the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine.
The CoE Department of Justice and Legal Cooperation through the above-mentioned Technical Assistance Project will assess the results of the Ukrainian judicial reform and its compliance with the standards of the Council of Europe. The purpose of the visit of the international experts was to discuss the reform of legislation and judicial institutions in the context of the functioning and organization of the judiciary in Ukraine.
The representatives of the Commission told the European experts about the competition for 120 judicial positions of the cassation courts within the Supreme Court, held by the Commission in 2017. In particular, considerable attention was paid to the novelties that took place during the competition procedure: not only judges, but also advocates and academicians did participate in the selection; first instance judges obtained the possibility to apply to the Supreme Court; public participation in the selection procedure; online broadcast of interviews with candidates; psychological testing; publication of the dossiers on the official website of the Commission.
The parties also talked about the procedure and interim results of the selection of candidates for the positions of a local court judge, the course of the qualification evaluation of the entire judicial corps of Ukraine, the competition to the High Court on Intellectual Property and the competition for the judicial positions of the High Anticorruption Court, which the Commission is to begin at the nearest future.
A separate topic was the discussion of the procedure of the future transfer of judges to the newly established district courts in accordance with the new court map in pursuance to the Presidential Decree of Ukraine “On Elimination and Establishment of Local General Courts” dated December 29, 2017, No. 449/2017.
On behalf of the Council of Europe Ms. Lorena Bachmaier Winter, Professor of Law at the University of Complutense in Madrid, Spain; Mr Gerhard Riessner, District Court Judge, Floridsdorf, Austria; Mr. Nils Engstad, former President of the Advisory Council of European Judges, Judge of the Court of Appeal, Halagland, Norway; Mr. Andrii Kavakin, Head of the CoE Project “Supporting Ukraine in the execution of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights” participated in the event.
The HQCJ at the meeting was represented by the Chairman of the Commission Mr. Sergii Koziakov and the Deputy Chairman Mr. Stanislav Shchotka.
In the end, Commission’s representatives responded to the clarification questions of the international experts on the peculiarities of the procedures being conducted by the Commission and agreed on further cooperation in the assessment of judicial reform by the Council of Europe.
