29 Nov, 2023
Sections
Parliament adopted the first reading of the draft law on optimizing the procedure for selection of judges
Event
On November 21, the Verkhovna Rada adopted in the first reading the draft law “On amendments to the law of Ukraine “On judiciary and status of judges” and some legislative acts of Ukraine on the improvement of judicial career procedures” (№10140-д). The draft law envisions the introduction of significant changes in the selection procedure and holding of competitions for judicial positions, qualification assessment of judges, and legal status of the Public Integrity Council (hereinafter — PIC).
CPLR’s assessment
In its opinion regarding Ukraine of November 8, 2023, the European Commission recommended – among priorities of negotiation chapter 23 – to restart the procedure for the selection of judges based on an improved regulatory framework due to the fact that existing procedure is lengthy and complicated. Primarily, it recommended to optimize the selection and mandatory training stages.
The mentioned draft law proposes to optimize the procedure for selection of judges for local courts through eliminating the selection exam and retaining only the qualification exam; abolishing the special training of candidates for the position of a judge and replacing it with initial training, which will be completed only by individuals already appointed to the position of a judge; and reducing the duration of judicial training (from one year to no longer than two months).
According to the CPLR experts, the proposed mechanism may indeed enable filling a significant number of judicial vacancies in a relatively short time. However, a number of provisions of the draft law contain significant flaws that may have a negative impact on the judicial reform. In particular:
– There is a lack of clear mechanisms for ensuring transparency in the selection of judicial candidates, despite the fact that such a requirement is contained even in the Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2021-2025;
– A new preference is given to the professional competence criteria as part of the qualification assessment, which is assigned 70% or more of the total maximum score in the assessment. In combination with the fact that the draft law does not specify the minimum points required for successful completion of the qualification assessment, a situation may arise in practice when the results of the integrity assessment of a judicial candidate will not play any role for successful passing of the qualification assessment.
– Despite the fact that the European Commission emphasizes the critical importance of involving the PIC both in the selection of new judges and in the qualification assessment, the amendments proposed in the draft law to regulate the legal status and activities of the PIC, in the CPLR experts’ opinion, are aimed at minimizing the effective public participation in the selection and assessment of judges and at subordinating the PIC to the High Qualification Commission of Judges, rather than at strengthening the Council’s institutional capacity.
Given the above, the Draft Law №10140-д needs to be revised. More details regarding the novelties and shortcomings of the draft law are available in the expert assessment of the CPLR.
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