The final stage of forming the Selection Commission: The Council of Judges has nominated its candidates

While Parliament continues to ignore the law on international experts, the Council of Judges of Ukraine (CoJ) has put forward questionable candidates for the selection of members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ). On October 3, the CoJ finally determined its quota for the Selection Commission. This time — without intrigue or competition. Only three candidates applied for the three available positions, leaving the Council with no real choice.

The CoJ delegated the following candidates to the Commission:

• Volodymyr Petrov, judge of the Commercial Court of the Odesa Region, known for issuing rulings in Russian and inconsistencies in his asset declarations. According to analysts, his reports include undervalued property and questionable sources of family income.

• Oleksandr Kotkov, judge of the Commercial Court of Kyiv, who also issued rulings in Russian and declared suspiciously low property values. His father-in-law, moreover, has been charged with a corruption offence.

• Andrii Hryhorov, former head of the Second Administrative Court of Appeal, resigned for health reasons.

DEJURE previously reported more details about Petrov and Kotkov.

What’s next?

The Council of Judges was the last body to nominate its representatives to the Selection Commission. The High Council of Justice must now appoint six members of the new auxiliary body from among the problematic candidates nominated by the Bar Council, the Prosecutors’ Council, the Academy of Legal Sciences, and the CoJ.

However, the main issue is that this time there will be no international experts. Their mandate expired on June 1, 2025, and draft law No. 13382, which was supposed to extend their participation, has been stalled in Parliament for months.

Without foreign members, the risks of behind-the-scenes deals in the selection process increase significantly. In the previous composition, international experts served as a safeguard whenever the judicial representatives tried to push through low-integrity candidates.

If the Verkhovna Rada fails to adopt draft law No. 13382, Ukraine will end up with a “renewed” HQCJ formed under the old rules — with the same faces. It is therefore time for Parliament to decide: either a clean selection process, or a return to the old ways.