Statement of the civil society organizations to the High Council of Justice concerning the participation in the discussion of the draft of the Anticorruption strategy

According to the announcement published by the High Council of Justice (HCJ), the HCJ organizes public discussion of the draft of the Anticorruption strategy for 2020-2024 on 31 July. 

The HCJ invited judges, representatives of the Council of Judges, National School of Judges, judicial associations, and legal professionals to participate in this discussion. 

We, representatives of DEJURE Foundation, Anticorruption Action Center, Center for Policy and Legal Reforms and the NGO “Automaidan”, eager to participate in the discussion of the draft of the Anticorruption strategy along with the representatives of the judicial community. 

We have systematically tracked the process of the implementation of judicial reform in Ukraine and directed our efforts to ensure the integrity and accountability of the judiciary. The experts of our organizations are professional lawyers with academic degrees and some even have experience of working as a judge. 

The draft of the Anticorruption strategy, developed by the National Agency on Prevention of Corruption (NAPC) contains an important part related to the development of the independent court in Ukraine (with the emphasis on anticorruption activity). The draft envisages the implementation of certain steps, which would ensure the integrity and transparency of the work of the courts, judges and judicial governance bodies. As of today, the HCJ denied the participation of some representatives of our organizations, stating that the discussion is organized solely for the judicial community. However, such a decision of the HCJ does not correspond to the information published on the website of the HCJ where it stated that the discussion is publicly open. 

Therefore, we call on the HCJ to demonstrate the transparency approach and allow our experts to participate in the discussion. We believe that comprehensive discussion of the draft of the Anticorruption strategy is impossible without a dialogue between judges and representatives of the professional community and civil society, which works on the establishment of the independent court in Ukraine and promotes the implementation of judicial reform.