The Verkhovna Rada on Feb. 2 passed in the first reading a bill that would let the discredited High Council of Justice choose new judges without comprehensive competition and integrity checks.
The High Council of Justice is the judiciary’s highest governing body and has a history of corruption. If the bill becomes law, the council will have free reign to appoint tainted judges in a non-transparent procedure, according to anti-corruption activists and legal experts.
This would further damage Ukraine’s deeply troubled judicial system and make it even harder to reform.
The council did not respond to a request for comment.
Previously, another body, the High Qualification Commission of Judges, selected judges via competitions that included tests and interviews. The High Council of Justice then formally appointed judges chosen by the commission.
However, in 2019 the High Qualification Commission was disbanded by a judicial reform law amid criticism that it appointed corrupt and politicized judges.
Since then, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his majority in parliament failed to pass a law to launch a new High Qualification Commission with the participation of foreign experts.
Flawed competitions
As a result, the High Council of Justice is expected to assume the commission’s authority and “complete” the competitions that the commission had started, according to the bill.
The council argued that it needs this authority because the commission’s dissolution created a shortage of judges.
However, candidates appointed by the High Council of Justice will not have to pass integrity checks.
The council will also have the authority to appoint candidates who failed the commission’s legal tests, Halya Chyzhyk, a legal expert at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, told the Kyiv Post.
The bill is at odds with recommendations by the G7 and the European Commission for Democracy through Law, also known as the Venice Commission, Mykhailo Zhernakov, head of legal think-tank DEJURE, wrote on Facebook.
“The President’s Office and members of parliament had almost one and a half years to create a good High Qualification Commission and complete the competitions,” Zhernakov said. “…Instead they have led the situation to a dead end, when the unreformed and corrupt High Council of Justice is going to select a lot of judges.”
High Council of Justice
The High Council of Justice was involved in numerous corruption scandals and is known for appointing tainted judges.
In September, the council unanimously refused to suspend notorious judge Pavlo Vovk, head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, who faces charges of organized crime, abuse of power, bribery and unlawful interference with government officials. Vovk denied the accusations.
The council’s members are allegedly implicated in the Vovk case. In wiretapped conversations released by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, Vovk mentioned the involvement of Andrii Ovsiienko, head of the High Council of Justice, along with other council members in his alleged corruption schemes.
Council members did not respond to a request for comment.
According to Ukraine’s memorandum with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ukraine was supposed to create a commission including foreign experts to fire tainted members of the High Council of Justice if they violate ethics and integrity standards. The IMF’s October deadline has been missed.
High Qualification Commission
Zelensky’s first judicial reform bill was signed into law in 2019 with the ostensible aim of creating a High Qualification Commission trusted by society. However, bodies that were supposed to cleanse the judiciary had not been created before the February 2020 deadline set by the law and the attempt failed.
This means that the old High Qualification Commission was dissolved in 2019 but a new commission has not been created. Assessments of judges’ integrity and professionalism have not been carried out in more than a year.
In June 2020 Zelensky submitted another bill to launch a new High Qualification Commission. The Rada has yet to consider it.
Legal experts and activists lambasted this bill because it would give the High Council of Justice full control over the selection of commission members and minimize the role of foreign experts.
