Counting Judges for Supreme Court: Mission Possible

When the judicial reform in Ukraine was launched in 2016 one of the proposals was to form a new Supreme Court with the maximum number of judges set at 200. In October 2019, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed the draft law penned by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which reduced the number of judges to 100.

The decision was not publicly discussed until the debate in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. During the debate, the President’s representative claimed that the number was chosen based on the country’s population following international practices.

In this publication, we analyze whether the method applied to reduce the number of judges to 100 is relevant for Ukraine, consider international experience with calculating the necessary number of judges, single out five methods of such calculation, and finally, calculate the necessary number of Supreme Court judges using the rate of disposal method (backlog elimination).