The Verkhovna Rada’s legal policy committee on Jan. 27 approved a judicial reform bill that has been heavily criticized by legal experts and anti-corruption activists.
The previous version of the bill, published in 2020, also drew criticism from civil society. But over the winter holidays, the bill was rewritten and made even worse, civic activists say.
The President’s Office and the legal policy committee did not respond to requests for comment.
The bill gives the High Council of Justice, the judiciary’s main governing body, full control over the selection of another judiciary body, the High Qualification Commission of Judges.
This effectively nullifies foreign experts’ role in the process, according to legal analysts. The High Council of Justice has been discredited due to numerous corruption scandals and the appointment of tainted judges by the council.
The High Council of Judges and the High Qualification Commission appoint, fire and punish judges.
Judicial experts argue that the bill violates Ukraine’s commitments to its foreign partners.
The Anti-Corruption Action Center, the DEJURE legal think tank and the Public Integrity Council judiciary watchdog all criticized the draft law.
“If the Rada supports the Servant of the People’s version of bill no. 3711, we can forget about international support or any change in the judiciary,” Halia Chyzhyk, a legal expert at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, wrote on Facebook.
Essence of the bill
According to the bill’s latest version, new members of the High Qualification Commission will be selected by the discredited High Council of Justice. Under the previous version, commission members were selected by a special panel consisting of foreign and Ukrainian experts.
Under the new version this panel will have only an advisory nature.
The selection panel will be entirely controlled by the discredited High Council of Justice. The commission will not have a secretariat of its own and will have to rely on the High Council of Justice’s secretariat.
The term of foreign experts on the panel will expire in a year, after which they will be replaced by Ukrainian prosecutors, lawyers and legal scholars.
The High Council of Justice will also adopt rules for the selection of the High Qualification Commission, gaining total control over the process.
According to the bill, judges will comprise half of the new High Qualification Commission. This is expected to preserve the old corrupt judiciary, according to civic activists.
Botched reform
Zelensky’s first judicial reform bill was signed into law in 2019 with the ostensible aim of firing tainted judges and creating credible judicial institutions. However, two bodies tasked with cleansing the judiciary had not been created before the February 2020 deadline set by the law and the attempt failed.
As a result of the first bill, the discredited old High Qualification Commission was dissolved in 2019 but a new commission has not been created, which means that the assessment of judges’ integrity and professionalism has not been carried out during more than a year.
In June 2020 Zelensky submitted another bill on judicial reform to the Verkhovna Rada.
Zelensky’s June bill stipulates a selection panel composed of three members of the Council of Judges, a judicial self-regulation body, and three foreign experts. The panel would choose new members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges.
According to the legislation, foreign experts may be nominated by any international organizations that engage in anti-corruption efforts and judicial issues.
Legal experts argued that this procedure makes it very easy for the High Council of Justice to pick “fake” foreign experts who would rubber-stamp Ukrainian authorities’ decisions.
High Council of Justice
The current High Council of Justice has a toxic reputation among Ukraine’s civil society. Many of its members face accusations of corruption and ethics violations, which they deny.
According to Ukraine’s memorandum with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ukraine was also supposed to create a commission including foreign experts to fire tainted members of the High Council of Justice if they violate ethics and integrity standards. The IMF’s October deadline has been missed.
In September, the President’s Office drafted a bill to cleanse the High Council of Justice. However, it has not even been submitted to parliament.
The President’s Office has been holding talks with the IMF about the bill while trying to render it toothless and safe for corrupt judges according to Kyiv Post sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were sharing confidential information.
