A step to the left, a step back: six blows to justice reform

Mykhailo Zhernakov and Olha Kovalska for zn.ua.

Ukraine is ending the year with a full set of problems in the justice system. While the EU is slowing the opening of negotiating clusters, the authorities have begun unfreezing old practices: attacks on independent institutions and civil society, attempts to undermine judges’ integrity checks, and the gradual pushing of international experts out of the processes.

Let us examine six key areas where progress has been replaced by rollback or stalling. In wartime conditions and in the context of European integration, stalling is just as much a step backwards — because such prolonged stagnation in certain reforms (such as the failure to appoint judges to the Constitutional Court) means we do not achieve the necessary results and cannot move on to new ones.

The Constitutional Court: quorum restored — capacity in question

The Constitutional Court had a chance to become an example of a transparent, competitive selection of judges with the participation of international experts. Such a process was launched in 2022 as part of the requirements for Ukraine’s EU candidate status, and it seemed to be working. However, Ukrainian reality later intervened — and began testing the procedure’s resilience.

Thanks to the new procedure, four new judges were appointed, and the quorum was restored de jure, so there are currently 13 judges in the CCU. However, de facto, the court’s ability to function effectively remains extremely limited. The reason is the shortage of judges, as it is much harder to find the required 10 votes out of 13 to adopt decisions than out of 18. At the same time, the majority were elected under the old politicised procedure without the involvement of the Advisory Group of Experts, including four political appointees of Zelensky. Therefore, securing 10 votes to strike down a provision favourable to the authorities and unconstitutional is unrealistic. Furthermore, if even two or three judges are absent, for example, due to illness, no decisions in constitutional cases can be adopted.

What is the role of the CCU in the life of the state? The Constitutional Court of Ukraine reviews laws for compliance with the Constitution, considers submissions by members of parliament, as well as constitutional complaints by citizens. That is, it serves as a guarantor of the constitutional order and the system of checks and balances in the country.

At key moments in recent history, it has played a decisive role. For example, in 2021, it recognised the law on the state language as constitutional, thereby strengthening the position of the Ukrainian language and weakening pro-Russian forces. But there have also been failures. In 2020, a politicised CCU, at the initiative of 48 MPs, nearly destroyed the electronic asset declaration system, triggering a constitutional crisis. This forced the Ukrainian authorities, together with European partners, to revise the rules for selecting judges.

At present, the judicial selection commission (the Advisory Group of Experts) has recommended enough candidates to fill all CCU positions under the quotas of the president and parliament. However, both appointing authorities have failed to fill all vacancies under their quotas. Parliament has failed the vote on two vacant positions.

In response, the European Commission stated that the appointing authorities should urgently resume the selection and appointment of vetted candidates, avoiding further delays, since CCU reform was the first condition for EU candidate status.

The Supreme Court: a fortress of self-preservation of the old system

In a “healthy country,” the Supreme Court should be the highest benchmark of justice and integrity. The SC must ensure the uniform application of the law by all courts, review decisions of other courts (as a court of cassation), analyse judicial practice, and provide opinions on draft laws concerning the judiciary. The Supreme Court may also assess the actions of the president in the event of suspected crimes or incapacity to exercise powers, apply to the Constitutional Court regarding the constitutionality of laws, etc.

Instead, it increasingly demonstrates the opposite — an unwillingness to abandon the old rules of the game, and at times a willingness to restore them. For example, there are currently all the signs that the Supreme Court is preparing to reinstate the notorious former head of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, Pavlo Vovk, and the odious former judge Inna Otrosh, who lost their positions precisely due to the implemented changes and the efforts of the renewed HCJ and HQCJ.

Yet despite all the investigations involving Russians in top positions, corruption scandals, and systematic resistance to reforms within the Supreme Court, the highest judicial instance feels safe and comfortable. Draft law No. 13165-2 on the verification of judges’ integrity declarations and family ties does not provide at all for the verification of declarations of Supreme Court judges, which was supposed to be a step toward cleansing this institution.

By the way, the updated mechanism for verifying integrity declarations and family ties was to be launched by June of this year. Ukraine did not do this, and as a result of failing to meet this and other benchmarks, lost the timely disbursement of €650 million under the Ukraine Facility. This is yet another example of how political unwillingness can undermine strategic reforms even when European integration and critically needed financial support for the country during wartime are at stake.

Brussels’ recommendation is unequivocal: the Supreme Court needs to be rebooted. And this process must include not only the selection of new judges but also integrity checks of sitting ones through transparent and clear procedures with the participation of international experts.

Selection and cleansing of the judiciary: the HQCJ and the PIC under fire

In addition to integrity declarations, essential tools for renewing the judiciary are qualification assessment and competitions for court positions (currently, Ukraine has over 2,200 (!) vacant posts).

However, the key bodies for these processes — the High Qualification Commission of Judges and the Public Integrity Council (PIC) — have now become targets of attacks from several sides at once.

In the spring, the State Bureau of Investigation activated criminal proceedings against members of the HQCJ. Searches and interrogations authorised by judges of the Pechersk Court coincided, not by chance, with the scheduling of exams for judges of the Pechersky and Shevchenkivsky district courts of Kyiv, as well as the liquidated District Administrative Court of Kyiv. This was meant to serve as a kind of “chilling effect,” a signal to HQCJ members: it is not worth touching those who are accustomed to being untouchable.

At the same time, since June of this year, a parliamentary Temporary Investigative Commission (TIC), chaired by Serhii Vlasenko and Maksym Buzhanskyi, has been operating. Initially, the TIC was created to attack NABU and SAPO, then it took on the High Anti-Corruption Court and the aforementioned High Qualification Commission of Judges, and now it has switched to civil society in general, in particular the Public Integrity Council. Sessions of this commission have de facto become public “interrogations” of HQCJ and PIC members in a rough manner, with rhetoric aimed at discrediting those who are cleansing the system.

Moreover, it appears that through this TIC, informally and non-publicly, “manual” appointments of judges — as under Yanukovych — have begun to return. In practice, this means “halting the automatic signing of submissions by the High Council of Justice and creating a de facto informal and unpredictable filter directly at Bankova.” And this is happening on the eve of the selection of judges to appellate courts.

International experts: a safeguard under threat

The model of involving international experts in competitions within Ukraine’s anti-corruption and judicial systems, which has existed for almost 10 years, has proven its effectiveness: the ability of political actors and top judges to influence the selection process has decreased, as it is much harder to find “leverage” over international experts than over Ukrainian ones.

One of the most successful examples of this model is the Public Council of International Experts (PCIE), which conducted the selection for the High Anti-Corruption Court. The PCIE blocked about 80% of candidates with questionable integrity from moving forward. The results of this approach speak for themselves — as of July 2025, the HACC has delivered 294 verdicts in less than six years and reviewed 320 criminal cases.

But this very model is now on the verge of dismantling. In June 2025, the mandate of international experts on the Selection Commission of the HQCJ expired, and parliament took no steps to extend it. Draft law No. 13382, which would allow their return to work, has been gathering dust in the Verkhovna Rada for almost half a year, despite a clear requirement from the European Commission to extend the powers of international experts.

Thus, in the near future, the selection of HQCJ members may pass into the hands of a Selection Commission composed of unreformed Ukrainian institutions, including the Ukrainian National Bar Association, headed by Viktor Medvedchuk’s longtime associate Lidiia Izovitova, and the Council of Judges, chaired by Pavlo Vovk’s protégé Bohdan Monich. Let us try to imagine who representatives of institutions where integrity has long ceased to be a priority will delegate to the HQCJ. Consequently, for the HQCJ, this would mean only one thing — a return to the old-style system, where decisions are made behind closed doors and candidates with a dark past once again receive a ticket into the judicial system.

Disciplinary procedures: reform in reverse

This year, the High Council of Justice dismissed 28 judges (including the notorious Pavlo Vovk) for disciplinary offences, as well as 10 judges based on HQCJ submissions following qualification assessments. Disciplinary chambers recommended another 30 judges for dismissal, including three judges of the liquidated District Administrative Court of Kyiv — Yevhenii Ablov, Volodymyr Keleberda, and Kostiantyn Pashchenko. At the same time, many high-profile disciplinary cases concerning judges, such as those of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, have still not been reviewed. The process is not as fast as one would like, but it has started. For comparison, the previous HCJ did not even temporarily suspend Vovk from office after the publication of the “DACK tapes.”

And just as the HCJ showed results in cleansing the judiciary, the authorities attempted to stop it. Draft laws No. 13137 and No. 13137-1, submitted under the guise of improving disciplinary liability, propose the exact opposite: narrowing key grounds for dismissing judges for disciplinary violations, blocking the filing of complaints, and removing liability for false declarations. Under such a law, judges who drove under the influence, bribed judges, collaborators, and those who unlawfully “got people off the hook” from mobilisation would avoid punishment.

The Bar and legal education

The sphere of legal education should be ahead of change: it is here that a new generation of lawyers, judges, attorneys, and prosecutors is formed. But the reality is bleak: nothing has changed.

A draft law on reforming legal education — high-quality and prepared by experts — has been sitting in a respective parliamentary committee for a long time. There is no separation between legal training and training for law enforcement bodies; the specialities “Law” and “International Law” are still not unified, and there are no new standards for them.

There is zero progress in reforming the bar self-governance as well. Ties to Medvedchuk, the involvement of lawyers in corruption and crimes against national security, closed processes, dependent disciplinary bodies, and non-transparent use of resources — all this contradicts European integration, as well as the practices of integrity, accountability, and professional competence that should form the foundation of the bar. For more than a decade, there have been no changes in the system.

…The Ukrainian authorities may demonstrate “readiness for negotiations” as much as they like and report on checked boxes, but for both the Ukrainian people, hungry for justice, and the European Union, this is not enough.

Today, we observe many problems: the paralysis of judicial selection, the stalling of disciplinary accountability, attacks on those who ensure the cleansing of the system, and, at the same time, a decline in trust of both citizens and international partners in Ukraine as an effective rule-of-law state, especially now, in the midst of the political crisis of Mindichgate. Precisely in order to respond to society’s intense demand for justice and to restore trust, we need a full-fledged judicial reform with a stable forward trajectory, rather than the sabotage and imitations that we observed in 2025.