More than 800 candidates for the positions of judges of local courts started to take qualification examination
From October 29 to October 31, 2018, qualification examination will be held on the premises of KyivExpoPlaza Exhibition Center within the framework of the procedure of selecting candidates for the position of a local court judge.
During that period, 876 candidates for the position of a judge will be taking the qualification examination:
819 candidates appeared to take the examination.
- 285 candidates from among persons who have worked as an assistant judge for at least three years and successfully passed special training at the National School of Judges of Ukraine;
- 591 candidates from among persons taking part in the selection with peculiarities envisaged by paragraph 29 of Section XII “Final and transitional provisions” of the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges”.
The examination consists of anonymous written test for knowledge of law (120 minutes), the results of which are computer-checked and a case study (300 minutes) – writing a draft court judgment. Future judges will take it according to the specialization chosen, and if they want, they will take it in several specializations, in particular:
On October 29, all candidates for judicial positions will take anonymous written test and candidates to the general courts will also take case study according to specialization;
On October 30, candidates who chose administrative specialization will take case study and on October 31 there will be case study on commercial specialization.
As of today, 824 candidates have expressed their desire to become judges of the relevant specialization (local general courts, local administrative courts, local commercial courts). 795 candidates chose specialization of local general court; 362 – local administrative court; 327 – local commercial court. 235 candidates expressed a desire to take case study in all three specializations; 190 candidates – in two specializations.
Furthermore, it should be noted that currently 373 candidates from among persons who do not have experience of working as assistant judges for at least three years continue special training at the National School of Judges of Ukraine.
The selection of judges to local courts is aimed at reducing caseload of judges working in local courts and at changing staff of the courts. Thus, new judges taking office in local courts will contribute to the restoration of justice in those localities of Ukraine where there was a shortage of judges and where justice was not partly or fully administered.
“There are about 8 thousand judges in the country, but in fact there are about 5600 of them and this figure is constantly decreasing for various reasons. Instead, the HQCJ is working on filling courts in cities and towns with new people by virtue of selection and competition procedures”, said Mr. Stanislav Shchotka, Deputy Chairman of the Commission. He also emphasized that training a judge “from scratch” takes more than a year and it is a very complicated procedure, so the Commission will currently appoint examinations for those who have already passed training.
It should be recalled that on October 08, 2018, the Commission adopted the Decision on Amending the Regulation on Taking Qualification Examination and the Methodology for the Evaluation of Candidates for the Position of a Judge approved by the Commission’s Decision No. 28/зп-17 dated April 3, 2017.
Maximum grade for test is 90 points, for a case study in specialization is 120 points. Total amount is 210 points. A person shall be deemed as having successfully passed the examination if he or she scores at least 75% of the maximum possible score for passing the exam. A candidate who scored less than 75% of the maximum possible grade for completing the first stage of the examination (test) shall be considered to have failed the examination.
