The Decree of the President of Ukraine No. 527/2022 of July 23, 2022, approved the Regulation on holding the competition on the selection of candidates for appointment by the President of Ukraine for the position of member of the High Council of Justice.
Also, the Decree has established the competition commission on selection candidates for appointment by the President of Ukraine for the position of HCJ member and approved its personal composition.
It should be reminded that HCJ members addressed the subjects of forming the High Council of Justice with the call to urgently restore the plenipotentiary composition of the HCJ.
This was emphasized by the HCJ members Vitalii Salikhov and Oksana Blazhivska during the regular consultations with experts of the Council of Europe on the discussion of legal initiatives on the implementation of remote justice in Ukraine in martial law or state of emergency conditions, organized by the Council of Europe Project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine” together with the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice.
Despite the difficult state, courts do not stop their functioning. Taking this into account, the issue of legislation improvement is pretty acute, first of all, the procedural legislation, in the part of administering justice remotely and its implementation. That is why the HCJ supported the draft law, developed specifically with the participation of the judicial community, as it reflects a more detailed algorithm of actions during the remote process for both judges and participants of the trial.
HCJ members Vitalii Salikhov, Oksana Blazhivska and Inna Plakhtii participated in the discussion of draft laws during the meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on legal policy.
By the results of the meeting, the secretariat was entrusted to prepare necessary documents with proposals on how advisory opinions of the HCJ should be published on the VRU official website.
The HCJ repeatedly addressed the parliamentarians with the initiative to establish mandatory publication of advisory opinions of the High Council of Justice on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. As the HCJ emphasized, their publication will provide the possibility of familiarizing a wider circle of people with the position of the judicial community, and will also assist in improving dialogue between branches of power.
Experts discussed the development of practical guide on remote court hearings
HCJ members Vitalii Salikhov and Oksana Blazhivska participated in the first meeting of the working group on developing the practical guide on remote court hearings. The working group was established within the activity of the Council of Europe Project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine” in cooperation with the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ).
During the meeting, experts presented the Guidelines on videoconferencing in judicial proceedings, adopted by CEPEJ at its 36th plenary meeting (June 16–17, 2021), based on which, in particular, the practical guide for Ukrainian lawyers will be prepared within the expert assistance.
Acting Chairman of the HCJ Vitalii Salikhov supported the necessity of development of such a material, as its preparation complies with the requirements of current legislation and aims at the improvement of processes that already exist.
HCJ expects a successful holding of the congress of scholars in August
The HCJ calls the Ministry of education and science of Ukraine and the organizational committee of the Congress of representatives of legal higher educational institutions and scientific institutions to provide the holding of the Congress, which is scheduled for August 19, 2022.
We hope that despite the challenges that the state faces every day in war conditions, the Congress will be able to take all measures necessary to consider the planned agenda, namely: the consideration of recommendations of the Ethics Council and filling the vacancy of the HCJ member by its quota. The holding of the Congress will give the possibility to bring closer the faster restoration of realization of constitutional functions of the judicial governance body, which is extremely important during the martial law period.
HCJ members Inna Plakhtii and Oksana Blazhivska participated in the regular meeting of the working group on issues of adequate financing of the judiciary in Ukraine within the VRU Committee on legal policy.
During the meeting, the participants found out the current condition of financing the judiciary, and also discussed the draft law on appointment to position judges the powers of whom were terminated due to the end of the five-year term for which they were appointed, its controversial points and proposals to the text.
During the continuation of the discussion proposed by the working group version of the draft law on restoration of powers of judges, appointed for five years, the HCJ member Inna Plakhtii expressed the joint position of Council’s members which was repeatedly expressed during the discussion regarding the editing of separate parts of the text.
By the results of the meeting, was approved the text of the version of the draft law on appointing to position judges, the powers of whom were terminated due to the end of the five-year term for which they were appointed.
On July 14, 2021 the Law of Ukraine No. 1635-ІХ was adopted. This law made amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the High Council of Justice”, in particular in the part of disciplinary proceedings against judges.
The Law provides that the competition for filling positions of HCJ disciplinary inspectors should be announced after finishing the evaluation on complying HCJ members (except for the Chairman of the Supreme Court) with professional ethics and integrity criteria, but not later than one year from the date of entry into force of this law. As follows, the competition for filling positions of disciplinary inspectors should have been announced no later than August 5, 2022.
According to the mentioned law, the disciplinary inspectors’ service will not start working until the formation of the plenipotentiary composition of the HCJ or making relevant amends to the legislation, which will temporarily determine the mechanism of formation of the disciplinary inspectors’ service before the start of work of the plenipotentiary composition of the constitutional body.