Crisis in the Supreme Court: from corruption to institutional sabotage

The Supreme Court (SC), the country’s highest judicial body, has become a systemic threat to judicial reform and European integration. The 2023 corruption scandal involving then-Chief Justice Vsevolod Kniaziev, accused of accepting a $2.7 million bribe, exposed the systemic problems of the SC. The majority of sitting judges on the Court were appointed in 2016-2017 through a manipulated selection process held by the old, unreformed High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ), which ignored over 50% of negative or red-flag integrity findings by the PIC. Both the 2023 and 2024 European Commission Enlargement Reports explicitly recommended the thorough reform of the SC.