Acting Chairman of the High Council of Justice Vitalii Salikhov, together with leadership of the judicial system, took part in working meeting on urgent issues of the judicial system in times of full-scale war.
The current situation and ways to solve a number of problems were discussed by the President of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Kniaziev, the heads of the cassation courts, the Head of the State Judicial Administration Oleksii Salnikov, the Head of the Council of Judges of Ukraine Bohdan Monich, the heads of courts of appeal.
Vitalii Salikhov emphasized that currently an urgent issue is the matter on forming the plenipotentiary composition of the High Council of Justice to perform by the body constitutional functions and resuming the work of the High Qualifications Commission of Judges of Ukraine. “And if there are enough candidates for the position of a member of the HCJ, then for today there are only 15 candidates for the position of a member of the HQCJU. And in order to start the process, at least 32 are needed. If the HQCJU is not formed, the initiated personnel procedures are not completed and the selection is not resumed, then it will not be possible to fill vacancies in courts of the first and appeal instances,” he stressed. Vitalii Salikhov appealed to the heads of the cassation courts and courts of appeal and urged to work with judges so that they more actively candidate for the HQCJU.
Acting Chairman of the HCJ also drew attention to the need to restore implementation of the disciplinary function. As is know, the HCJ was deprived of the relevant powers, and the service of disciplinary inspectors, to which the functions were transferred, has not yet been formed. “There is an urgent need to discuss in the judicial community aspects of the application of Article 106 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges” that forms principles for bringing judges to disciplinary responsibility. The development of criteria is necessary, first of all, for judges – so that each judge knows the clear grounds for bringing to disciplinary responsibility,” said Vitalii Salikhov.
Also, in the opinion of the Acting Chairman of the High Council of Justice, approaches to the secondment of judges should be adapted to the critical conditions of today.
He proposed to the representatives of the Supreme Court and the Council of Judges of Ukraine, taking into account the special conditions of the judiciary that developed during the war, and considering that the majority of judges did not give their consent to secondment, to develop a provision that would temporarily limit the democratic principle of giving by a judge consent to seconding and ensure at least a minimum capacity of courts to administer justice. The Law of Ukraine “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” allows for such a possibility.
Vitalii Salikhov also reported that the Council receives requests from law enforcement bodies to stop resignation of judges holding positions in the so-called people's republics in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, or who have chosen dual citizenship. According to him, as soon as the Council becomes plenipotentiary, members will consider these issues.