On the eve of the Revolution of Dignity, the level of trust in the courts in Ukraine stood at 7% and was one of the lowest in the world and the lowest in Europe. The judicial reform of 2016 has been the most substantial to date. Constitutional amendments were introduced, new laws were adopted, several new institutions were created. The reform was primarily directed at making the judiciary more independent, trustworthy and publicly accountable.

However, these reform measures cannot be considered successful. The newly established Supreme Court was mostly composed of the old judges, with 44 judges (23%) clearly lacking integrity, and the vetting of the rest of the judiciary failed. This is primarily due to the reluctance of political elites to take decisive steps that would diminish their control over the judiciary. The resistance to reform of the judiciary itself also played a key role. The High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) and the High Council of Justice (HCJ) consisting mostly of judges kept most of their corrupt colleagues in their positions.

A good counterexample was the formation of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC). The idea of creating the HACC with the new model of selection of judges was suggested by representatives of civil society. Independent international experts (the Public Council of International Experts - PCIE) supported by the international partners of Ukraine were engaged in the process and had the power to veto the appointment of the dubious candidates. That made the competition a lot more objective and fair. As a result, the independent HACC started functioning in September 2019 and already issued more than 50 verdicts in high-profile corruption cases.

After a major political change in 2019, a window of opportunities was open to give the judicial reform a new momentum and to scale the success story of the HACC. During the elections,

NGOs persuaded the candidates to support "The Judicial Reform Agenda" initiative, which called, among other things, for the relaunch of the judicial governance bodies responsible for the failure of the judicial reform of the last 5 years.

In November 2019 the bill #1008 (later law # 193-IX) was adopted. The latter provided for the renewal of the judicial governance bodies with the participation of the experts delegated by the international partners.

However, law #193-IX was not without severe flaws. As a result, the representatives of the old "judicial mafia" (namely, the High Council of Justice) effectively blocked the participation of the international experts in this process. In March, the Constitutional Court ruled that some provisions of law #193-IX are unconstitutional and reform completely stalled.

In May 2020, leading civil society organizations developed the Judicial Reform Roadmap -- an action plan that contains key recommendations for creating a foundation for a strong and independent judiciary in Ukraine.

In July 2021, the Rada adopted two bills proposed by the President to unblock the reform - #3711-d on reform of the High Qualification Commission of Judges and #5068 on the reform of the High Council of Justice. The bills provide for the effective reboot of the judicial governance bodies with the casting vote of the independent international experts. But the implementation of the laws is now threatened by the other judicial institutions - mainly the Constitutional Court and the notorious District Administrative Court of Kyiv.

Two months after the deadline foreseen by the law, the Ethics Council aimed at restarting the HCJ was finally formed. On the evening of November 8, the High Council of Justice refused to appoint members of the Ethics Council, so on November 9, the composition of the body is formed automatically by the law. Almost a month before, on September 17, the Selection Commission which will reboot the HQQC was formed. That means that soo two bodies will start their work, check the integrity of the HCJ and relaunch the qualification assessment of the serving and future judges.

In October 2020, a crisis was caused by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine's (CC) decision to close the public register of declarations and to abolish criminal liability for failure to submit or falsify electronic declarations. Mass protests ensued. The President suspended the head of the CC, Oleksandr Tupytskyi, from the position of the CC judge. Later, the CC resumed work but the crisis is still unresolved.

The Venice Commission, upon the request of President Zelensky, and NGOs called for the establishment of a real competitive selection procedure for the CC judges to limit their political dependence. In June 2021, the committee of the Parliament on legal policy supported the necessary amendments to bill #4533, but reversed the decision in September. The representatives of the unreformed judiciary announced they will challenge the newly adopted reform in the Constitutional Court. The unreformed CC with the majority of dependent judges ready to adopt any arbitrary decision so far poses the biggest threat to the reform.

In August 2021, the President appointed a decree announcing the competition for two CC seats on his quota and appointed 7 members of the selection commission. The NGOs protested against this decision as legally there are no vacant seats in the Constitutional Court within the President's quota, despite the President's attempt to remove two discredited judges unconstitutionally. Such appointments can jeopardize the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court and its decisions. Three international experts appointed by the President to the selection commision refused to continue their participation, acknowledging the absence of the vacant seats.

In the summer of 2020, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) published the recordings that were allegedly made in the office of Pavlo Vovk - the President of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv (DACK). According to the tapes, the DACK judges were allegedly involved in massive corruption and attempted to seize power. The HCJ then unanimously refused to suspend or discipline Pavlo Vovk and his associates.

The petition to the President to liquidate DACK collected the necessary 25,000 votes. In April 2021, after another corruption scandal, the President registered the urgent draft law №5369 to liquidate the court. For 5 months, the parliamentary committee on legal policy fails to even include the bill in the agenda. The other presidential draft law #5067 provides for the transfer of a number of cases to the Supreme Court, partly implementing the IMF Memorandum. However, the bill only concerns a small number of cases and does not solve the issue of corruption in the DACK. To date, the DACK remains the most notorious and simultaneously one of the most powerful courts in the country.

Despite progress with the reform of the HQCJ and the HCJ, judicial reform's prospects remain unclear. The reform of the Constitutional Court and the District Administrative Court of Kyiv is of utmost importance and urgency.

Details of the necessary steps towards reforming Ukraine's judicial system are set out in the Judicial Reform Map prepared by Ukrainian experts and NGOs.

DJR