A huge crisis in the judicial system due to ineffective reform - expert

The Ukrainian judicial system is in a huge crisis because of a reform that has proved ineffective. After all, nothing has changed in the process of selecting judges, except for the ultimate beneficiary of this process. This opinion was expressed by Valeriy Klochok, head of the Center for Public Analysis "Vezha", in an exclusive commentary for UNN.

Is it time for a reform? Yes, of course, it doesn't depend on whether we have a war or not, it needs to be done because we have a huge crisis in the judicial system because of the existing judicial reform, we are missing thousands of judges in local courts today, and this issue is not moving forward. So what is the effectiveness of this reform

In addition, according to him, the principle of transparency in the selection of candidates for judges, as well as for senior civil servants, is distorted in Ukraine because the bodies that select candidates are accountable to the bodies to which they are selected, and therefore are not independent.

In particular, the High Qualification Commission of Judges has established a public integrity council that selects candidates for judgeships and then approves their candidacies by the HQCJ and the High Council of Justice.

Klochok noted that this principle has been in place since the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, when the HCJ was replaced by the High Council of Justice and judges were appointed by the parliament.

"The judicial reform - what it consisted of was taking away the power of final appointment of judges from the parliament, because they were voted for earlier, and transferring it to the Presidential Office... Only the final, let's say, beneficiary of this process has changed - then it was the Verkhovna Rada, now it is the Presidential Office. This judicial reform was carried out under (former President) Poroshenko, and it is enshrined in the Constitution. But it did not change the essence of the selection of candidates for judges. That is, we did not get a different quality of judges. And now all the talks revolve around this," Klochok said.

The expert sees one way out of this situation in the appointment of judges through elections.

"Therefore, the story with all these releases of materials (that the former MP accused of a series of contract killings and high treason, Oleksandr Shepelev, could bribe judges of the Supreme Court in the case of escape from custody - ed. ) it is in two planes - the absence of judicial reform as such, it did not exist... And secondly, because since Yanukovych's time, no President has asked whether we should continue to conduct investigative actions, procedural in accordance with the CPC," Klochok noted

In his opinion, the Criminal Procedure Code currently allows for avoidance of liability before the verdict is actually announced by the court.

"So I remind everyone that we are now living under the Criminal Procedure Code, which was prepared by Portnov in the days of Yanukovych, and this CPC is already 10 years old. I remember a lot of complaints about its implementation from law enforcement and investigative agencies, less so from the judicial system, because judges usually do not comment on laws, they enforce them," the expert added.

He noted that there are many complaints about the CPC, that cases are dismissed at the investigation stage and that cases are under jurisdiction.

Add

Kateryna Butko, head of the public council at the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NAPC), believes that the Supreme Court needs to be reformed and cleared of dishonest judges, so that cases like Shepelev's will be considered transparently and efficiently.

Lawyer, executive director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Oleksandr Pavlichenko told UNN that the High Council of Justice is tasked with forming an independent judicial system in Ukraine without political influence.  Volodymyr Vatras, chairman of the subcommittee on the organization and activities of the Bar and legal aid bodies of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy, also stated the need to cleanse the Supreme Court of judges who have compromised themselves.  

Recall

A panel of the Supreme Court changed Shepelev's sentence in the escape from custody case and tried to release him. Judges Vyacheslav Marynych, Volodymyr Korol and Alla Makarovets decided to close one of the episodes of the case, which concerned bribery, due to what they considered insufficient evidence. As a result, the former MP's property will not be confiscated in this case.

Although, according to experts interviewed by UNN, the Supreme Court judges did not have the right to directly examine any evidence.

In addition, the judges counted the period of Shepelev's stay in the Russian pre-trial detention center as part of the sentence. He was detained in Russia following an extradition request from Ukraine. A year later, Russia refused to extradite the fugitive ex-MP to Ukraine, citing threats to its own national security.

It turned outthat Shepelev was valuable to Russia because he was an FSB agent and a game player. The Supreme Court panel also used the Savchenko Law and counted Shepelev's time in a pre-trial detention center on charges in other cases as part of his sentence. The prosecutor appealed the actions of the Supreme Court judges to the HCJ. According to the automatic distribution , the complaint in Shepelev's case will be considered by the first ever HCJ member who fought at the front against Russia, Olena Kovbiy.