On February 21, 2023, the Selection Commission, in charge of selecting candidates for the position of a member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJ), completed the second stage of the public competition - interviews.
The Selection Commission conducted interviews with the candidates invited to participate in the second stage of the competition via Zoom in January and February 2023 in Warsaw, Poland. During 18 working days, the members of the Commission held professional discussions with 61 candidates, namely 32 in January and 29 in February, which lasted 78 hours. As a reminder, interviews with 64 candidates were scheduled for the second stage, of which three withdrew from the competition.
Thus, 67% of men (41 persons) and 33% of women (20 persons) took part in the second stage of the competition, of whom 38% (23 persons) are judges, 28% (17 persons) are scholars, 16% (10 persons) are lawyers, 5% (3 persons) are law enforcement representatives, and 13% (8 persons) have other specialties.
The list of candidates who have been interviewed for the position of HQCJ member in January and in February can be found on the website of the High Council of Justice, as well as in the recordings of broadcasts that took place on the official YouTube channel of the Selection Commission in Ukrainian and English and on the High Council of Justice's website. The Selection Commission's Facebook page contains photo reports reflecting a retrospective of each day of interviews. During the interviews, the Selection Commission members asked questions for 60-90 minutes to assess the candidates' compliance with the criteria of integrity and professional competence, in particular, the correspondence of the actual financial status to the declared one, teamwork skills, motivation to participate in the competition, vision of the future of the judiciary and the role of the HQCJ in it, practical questions to determine the level of knowledge in the field of law, judicial proceedings and judicial system.
Based on the results of the study of almost 14 thousand documents, including about 1500 property declarations, more than 640 explanatory documents of the candidates and about 300 certificates from NGOs, as well as answers to questions during the interviews, the Selection Commission will soon shortlist candidates for consideration by the High Council of Justice, with at least two candidates for each of the 16 vacancies from which it will appoint HQCJ members.
"We are grateful to each candidate who invested their time and effort in the interview. We are grateful to the civil society organizations that have made a great deal of effort to analyze and provide information about the candidates, we are grateful to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which enabled Ukraine to hold this competition despite the war, and to our team. We have a challenging task ahead of us - to select the best of those who took part in the second stage of the competition. We will do this as quickly as possible and in compliance with the Ukrainians' dream of a fair trial," said Ivan Mishchenko, Chairman of the Selection Commission.
As a reminder, the continuation of the judicial reform in Ukraine, which began in 2016 and continued in 2021, is one of the conditions for Ukraine's membership in the European Union. The reform calls for the establishment of the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine through open and transparent competitions involving independent international experts who will have a casting vote in the process. Appointment of members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJU), which has not been operational for almost three years, will allow the HQCJU to resume its work on the selection of judges and complete the qualification assessment of current ones.
