Exam failed: the HQCJ did not pass the trial by Vovk

On July 9, the notorious head of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv (DACK), Pavlo Vovk, finally appeared for an exam administered by the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ). This exam precedes the interview stage of the qualification assessment introduced in 2016. Vovk, along with other judges from the DACK, had repeatedly avoided even this initial stage. This time, the test did not occur, but surprisingly, it wasn’t due to Vovk.

In a statement posted on the HQCJ’s Facebook page, they mentioned an “extraordinary situation”: “… there was an issue with the generated test questions in the test sheets.” According to the announcement, participants noticed that identical questions were repeated in each version of the test. Upon discovering this, the exam was stopped, and the test sheets were collected.

The system for generating questions had been functioning without issues since 2016, yet it malfunctioned precisely during Pavlo Vovk’s exam. Why did this happen, and who is responsible?

This situation underscores the need for changes in the management of the HQCJ, particularly within the HQCJ’s Secretariat, where the leadership has remained unchanged since the era of Yanukovych’s associate, Andriy Portnov. We hope the HQCJ will address this issue and soon decide on its own management. It’s worth noting that the HQCJ has been unable to elect a chair and deputy since the end of March when Roman Ihnatov resigned.

Moreover, conducting the qualification assessment is one of the key priorities for reforms on Ukraine’s path to EU membership, as well as for the G7 countries that support Ukraine. Incidents like these damage our image in the eyes of our partners and clearly do not help our cause.