Members of Parliament propose to “fix” the competition for the Constitutional Court — in reality, they seek to weaken independent experts

The competition for the position of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is under the threat of political interference. Draft law No. 14149 has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada, which weakens a key element of the reformed procedure — the involvement of independent experts. Although the work of the Verkhovna Rada is currently paralysed, according to our information, MPs were planning to consider this draft law in the plenary hall.

At first glance, the draft law authored by Denys Maslov, Serhii Vlasenko, and other MPs aims to improve the competitive selection of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine. In the explanatory note, the authors claim that during preparations for appointing CCU judges, problems allegedly emerged related to the “protection of personal data” and the document management of the Advisory Group of Experts (AGE). They argue that since the AGE is not a state authority, it cannot fully ensure the processing of information regarding candidates.

The key change concerns amendments on the organisational and technical support of the Advisory Group of Experts (AGE) and its obligation to provide, upon request of the Verkhovna Rada, copies of all documents and information concerning the assessed candidates.

At first glance, the proposed changes appear to be about optimising the functioning of the advisory body, but the consequences of their adoption could be dangerous. The DEJURE Foundation received official responses from the AGE and the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court regarding the storage of documents and organisational and technical support of the AGE’s activities. They confirmed that the Secretariat of the CCU:

• provides the AGE with premises, organises broadcasts of meetings, registers documents, and provides premises for their storage, etc.;

• does not have access to the content of the AGE’s materials and is not their custodian.

Thus, documents concerning candidates are stored in a special facility of the CCU, and only the AGE and its secretariat dispose of them, which additionally guarantees the independence of candidate assessment. It is precisely thanks to the independence of the AGE that international and Ukrainian experts can freely assess the moral qualities and professional competence of candidates to the CCU, without regard to political opinion.

Dangerous changes in the draft law

The draft law proposes to change the architecture of this process:

• Organisational and technical support of the AGE will be carried out by the Secretariat of the CCU, including not only the provision of premises and registration of correspondence, but also access to all materials collected by the AGE regarding candidates: personal data, documents, and other confidential information. Final storage of information on the evaluation of candidates will also be carried out by the Secretariat of the CCU. Accordingly, if necessary, the Committee will be able to request these documents directly from the Secretariat of the CCU;

• the AGE will be obliged to transfer to the Verkhovna Rada the entire package of documents collected regarding candidates.

And what will these changes lead to? The Verkhovna Rada Committee will be able to obtain all materials (directly from the AGE or from the Secretariat) regarding candidates and effectively “re-evaluate” the AGE’s conclusions. That is, MPs will have the opportunity to:

• compare candidates’ answers to assignments;

• cast doubt on the decisions of independent experts and their approaches to evaluation;

• promote “preferred” candidates under the guise of an “alternative assessment” by the Committee.

In practice, this means assuming the role of the Advisory Group of Experts, whose function is precisely to assess moral qualities and competence, rather than to “assist” MPs in analysing candidates and making decisions.

MPs openly voiced such intentions at the Committee meeting on 3 October 2025:

“The purpose of establishing the Advisory Group of Experts under the Law ‘On the Constitutional Court’ is to assist appointing authorities in evaluating moral qualities and the level of competence in the field of law. And precisely all these aspects, including the issue of the possibility of re-evaluating candidates, we could [address] even within the current version of the law.”

The proposed changes will also allow MPs to deflect responsibility for the six-month blocking of the appointment of CCU judges, which we have already written about earlier.

Back in February 2025, the AGE submitted to the Committee the full package of documents required by law — ranking lists and decisions on candidates. However, for six months, the Committee did not schedule interviews, referring to the alleged absence of documents, in particular answers to written assignments, which the law does not require at all. In reality, all indications suggest that the delay of the competition was a political decision, and the story about documents became a convenient cover for the lack of willingness to move forward with the appointment of CCU judges.

Conclusions

Draft law No. 14149 creates conditions under which:

• the parliament gains access to all candidate documents collected by the AGE in the course of its work;

• MPs will be able to conduct a repeated assessment of candidates’ moral qualities and competence, meaning that the Legal Policy Committee will effectively re-evaluate the AGE’s conclusions;

• the role of the AGE will be reduced to a “secretarial” function, instead of its role as a key institution for candidate analysis and for protecting the competition from political influence.

This opens the way to politicisation of the competition by weakening the independence of the AGE, replacing objective assessment with MPs’ preferences, and putting at risk the formation of an independent Constitutional Court.

We call on the Verkhovna Rada not to allow the distortion of the purpose of the AGE’s work and, if the draft law is considered, to reject draft law No. 14149.