President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party passed a bill ensuring the revival of the High Qualification Commission for judges in the first reading.
On March 3, the new bill was supported by 227 lawmakers, with just one vote over the minimum requirement. No opposition lawmakers supported the bill.
The bill has been lambasted by anti-corruption activists and legal experts. According to them, without a proper judicial reform, creating a new judicial body with old judges will only legitimize and entrench the current corrupt system.
In 2019, the Commission was dissolved by Zelensky for endemic corruption and for appointing tainted judges in key courts. If the bill gets passed in the second reading, the revived High Qualification Commission will consist of 16 members selected by the High Council of Justice, another controversial regulatory body.
Commission members will serve a four-year term.
The new bill is criticized for empowering the High Council of Justice, which famously was implicated in the case of the corrupt judge Pavlo Vovk.
Vovk, the head of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, is suspected of abuse of power and partaking in organized crime. His case has became the symbol of the endemic corruption in Ukrainian courts.
In September, the High Council of Justice unanimously refused to suspend Vovk, despite strong allegations of his corruption.
Read More: Vovk tapes reveal corruption as lifeblood of Ukrainian law enforcement
Now, the new bill gives the Council a decisive role in appointing members of the Qualification Commission, which will in turn select all Ukrainian judges.
“The competition for the Commission will be conducted by a corrupt and unreformed High Council of Justice and not by a commission involving international experts,” Mykhailo Zhernakov, head of the judicial think tank Dejure, said on Facebook. “Half of the Commission will consist of judges or retired judges who are part of the judicial mafia.”
In February, the European Parliament passed a resolution which stated that a new High Qualification Commission should be created “based on a transparent selection procedure, with the involvement of international experts.”
The new bill doesn’t envision that.
