At the initiative of the High Council of Justice the round table “Collaboration as a challenge to the judicial system” took place and was dedicated to search for mechanisms of appropriate response to manifestations of collaborationism in the judicial system.
The High Council of Justice is the highest constitutional body of judicial governance, which is obliged to ensure the governability and stability of the judicial branch of power work and direct its activities to prevent the unlawful behavior of individual judges.
The HCJ members are extremely concerned about the impossibility to make decisions in critical situations under the circumstances that arose in the judicial system during the war. The lack of authority of the highest body of judicial governance threatens the stability of the judicial system and the security of the entire state.
Currently, demand arose for creating conditions for emergency response to cases of collaboration activities and high treason in the judicial system.
According to the HCJ, judges suspected of committing high treason, collaborative activities, having dual citizenship or foreign citizenship should be suspended from the administration of justice. Such a procedure in the absence of the plenipotentiary HCJ should be determined by legislation.
The participants of the event stressed the need to urgently develop legislative changes that will enable prompt prosecution of the law violators, removal from the administration of justice of judges who have dual citizenship and who were notified of the suspicion in cases of collaborationism, to deprive the status of a judge and financial guarantees of retired judges collaborating with the invaders.
Those present at the event discussed the need to provide the Council of the current composition with the possibility of taking decisions on issues related to shameful manifestations of collaborative activity among judges, high treason or dual citizenship of judges, since only the HCJ has the exclusive competence to give consent on suspension of judges from the administration of justice, to detain judges or hold them in custody.
The HCJ members expressed clear position that such judges should not administer justice and brought it to the judicial community.
The participants in the discussion demonstrated their readiness to actively cooperate in order to develop effective mechanisms to counter manifestations of collaborationism in the judicial system and thanked the HCJ for initiating and holding the event.
The event was attended by: Acting Chairman of the High Council of Justice Vitalii Salikhov, members of the Council Oksana Blazhivska, Dmytro Lukianov, Roman Maselko, Mykola Moroz and Inna Plakhtii, President of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Kniaziev, Chairman of the Criminal Cassation Court within the Supreme Court Stanislav Kravchenko, Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin, Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksii Symonenko, Chairman of the Council of Judges of Ukraine Bohdan Monich, Chairman of the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine Oleksii Salnikov, People’s Deputies of Ukraine Oleksandr Bakumov, Serhii Demchenko, Pavlo Pavlish, Deputy Head of the General Department of countering systemic threats to state governance of the Security Service of Ukraine Andrii Lysiuk, Deputy Head of the Central Investigation Department – Head of the State Bureau of Investigation Artem Medvedenko, Director of the Directorate of Justice and Criminal Justice of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine Oleksandr Oliinyk, heads of courts of appeal, representatives of the scientific community.