The “broken bicycle” was to be “fixed”. Only now the brakes have been removed as well

Three international experts can unanimously support a candidate for the High Qualifications Commission of Judges — and the candidate still will not go any further. It is enough for the three representatives of the judicial part of the Selection Commission to vote against.

This is exactly the model proposed by MPs Volodymyr Vatras, Ivan Kalaur and Mykola Stefanchuk in draft law No. 16018, registered in the Verkhovna Rada.

International experts are being brought back to the Selection Commission, but they will have no decisive vote either in the assessment of candidates’ integrity or in the assessment of professional competence.

In August, DEJURE already wrote about the government’s draft of such a law and called the proposed model a “broken bicycle”. At that point, international experts were at least left with a decisive vote at the integrity stage.

A month has passed. It was decided to “fix” the bicycle. Only now have the brakes been removed as well.

Parity kept, the decisive vote taken away

Under draft law No. 16018, the Selection Commission will consist of six members: three judges or retired judges and three experts nominated by international and foreign organisations.

At least four votes are required for a decision.

On paper, the 3+3 parity is preserved. But without a decisive vote for the international members, it works quite differently from the model under which the new High Qualifications Commission of Judges was formed in 2023.

The mutual veto will now operate both on integrity and on competence

The government draft had a different problem.

International experts had a decisive vote only during the integrity assessment. At the stage of professional competence, by contrast, the Ukrainian part of the Selection Commission could block a candidate.

Draft law No. 16018 “corrects” this asymmetry in an original way — the international members will lose the decisive vote at the integrity stage too.

Four votes are now required at both stages. This means that the three representatives of the judicial part can block a candidate both in the integrity assessment and in the professional competence assessment.

In the government draft, the decisive influence of international experts was retained at least at one stage. In the MPs’ draft law it is nowhere to be found.

No independence was added to the Selection Commission

The High Council of Justice gains control over the admission of candidates to the competition.

The draft law also does not provide for a separate independent secretariat for the Selection Commission.

Once the competition is completed, the entire body of documents and information collected on the candidates is to be transferred for storage to the Secretariat of the High Council of Justice.

DEJURE already wrote about the risk of this model on 13 August. Sensitive information about the people whom the Council itself will later appoint as members of the High Qualifications Commission of Judges will be kept within the structure of the High Council of Justice for years.

This is hardly what the institutional independence of the Selection Commission should look like.

In two years the international model automatically ceases to operate

The second composition of the Selection Commission with the participation of international experts receives a mandate for two years from the day of appointment. After that, the next composition will be formed under the general rules of Article 95-1 of the Law on the Judiciary and the Status of Judges, which do not guarantee the participation of international partners.

At the same time, the terms of office of 15 of the 16 members of the High Qualifications Commission of Judges expire as early as June 2027.

In other words, the international model will end by the calendar — regardless of whether, by that moment, all the competitions for which it was introduced in the first place have been completed.

And the Ukrainian authorities have long known how to drag competitions out, and they do it skilfully.

The international members are being brought back. But without the main safeguard

The idea of returning international experts to the selection of the High Qualifications Commission of Judges is correct in itself. The problem is how exactly they are being returned.

The 3+3 parity has been kept, but what made it a safeguard — the decisive vote of the international experts — has been removed. No independence was added to the Selection Commission, and the international model itself will automatically cease to operate in two years.

The international members seem to be coming back. But in a way that keeps them from getting too much in the way.