Results of the stage of assessing the high moral qualities of candidates for the position of judge of the CCU

More than a week ago, on March 23, the Advisory Group of Experts (AGE) completed the assessment of candidates for the position of judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) regarding their compliance with the criterion of high moral qualities.

Note that at the beginning of the competition, in November last year, 37 people applied for 5 vacant positions of judges of the CCU.

Of all these 37 applicants, only 8 people reached the stage of assessing the level of competence in the field of law.

In total, 12 candidates stopped their participation at their own will: 8 – even before the start of public interviews with them and 4 candidates ended their participation already during and after the interviews.

AGE recognized 17 candidates as "non-compliant" with the criterion of high moral qualities.

Thus, even before the competency assessment stage, 29 out of 37 persons admitted to the competition by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Council of Judges of Ukraine did not pass the assessing "sieve" of the Advisory Group of Experts.

It turns out that more than 75% of the applicants were not ready for the challenges of the first transparent and quite detailed competitive evaluation by the Advisory Group of experts of candidates for the position of judge of the CCU.

This path is difficult, but it is worth going all the way.

The path of a candidate for the position of judge of the CCU

On November 12, 2023, the Advisory Group of Experts began its work, which became one of the key and necessary elements of the updated competitive procedure for the selection of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

According to the law, the task of the Advisory Group of Experts is to assist the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine and the Council of Judges of Ukraine in assessing the moral qualities and level of competence of candidates for the position of judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

To put it very briefly, as a result, the AGE should hand over to the appointment bodies honest and professional candidates.

In general, the assessment of candidates within the AGE is structured as follows.

During the assessing process, the AGE reasonably establishes and confirms the compliance or non-compliance of each candidate with 1) the criterion of high moral qualities and 2) the criterion of a recognized level of competence in the field of law.

For this, the AGE collects and analyzes materials on candidates, as well as conducts public interviews with them and a written assessment of the level of competence in the field of law.

At each of these two stages of assessment, candidates receive a "compliant" or "non-compliant" rating from the AGE.

Candidates who receive a grade of "non-compliant" are considered to have failed the appropriate stage and stop participating in the competition.

As a result, the rating lists of candidates who received a "compliant" rating from the AGE at both stages are submitted to the President, the Parliament, and the Congress of Judges of Ukraine, respectively, for the appointment some of them as a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

8/25

At the time of the end of the assessing the moral qualities of the candidates and the announcement of the results, 25 applicants for the position of judge of the CCU continued to participate in the competition for 5 vacant positions and, accordingly, all of them were evaluated by the Advisory Group of Experts.

Therefore, 8 candidates for the position of judge of the Constitutional Court received the AGE rating "compliant" with the criterion of high moral qualities.

Among them – 3 candidates admitted to the competition by the Council of Judges of Ukraine under the quota of the Congress of Judges of Ukraine – judges of the Supreme Court Alla Oliinyk and Oleksandra Yanovska, as well as employee of the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Nataliia Denysenko (also admitted under the quota of the Parliament of Ukraine).

And 6 candidates admitted to the competition by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine – professor of constitutional law and vice-rector of Ivan Franko Lviv National University Serhii Riznyk, prosecutor of the General Prosecutor's Office Taras Tsymbalistyi, employee of the Support Program of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for Ukraine Oleksandr Vodiannikov, professor of constitutional law and vice-rector of Yaroslav Mudry National University of Law Yuriy Barabash, detective of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau Roman Yaromenok and the mentioned before Natalia Denysenko (also admitted under the quota of the Council of Judges of Ukraine).

Now, in accordance with the AGE Methodology, the Advisory Group of Experts has 15 days to produce the full text of reasoned decisions regarding candidates. Full texts of reasoned decisions will be published on the CCU website.

At the same time, in accordance with the Law of Ukraine "On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine", only the decisive parts of the relevant decisions will be made public regarding the candidates who received a rating "non-compliant". The full texts of the decisions regarding such candidates may be made public only upon their request.

However, there is one detail that we did not describe and which should be remembered during the entire competitive selection for the position of judge of the CCU – from the submission of documents to the vote for the appointment of the candidate – there is the legal requirement regarding the minimum permissible competition for the position.

Let's analyze in more detail what this means.

One vacancy – two candidates

The specific law "On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine" contains a provision that clearly indicates that if at any stage of the competition, based on the results of the evaluation, the number of candidates is less than two for each certain vacant position of judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, then the subjects of appointment shall immediately announce a new competitive selection for the that certain vacant position. This should happen immediately, but no later than twenty days after such circumstances became known.

Let's analyze it on a real example of the results of assessing the moral qualities of candidates.

So, at this stage, three candidates admitted to the competition according to the quota of the Congress of Judges of Ukraine received the rating "compliant", while there are 2 vacant positions of judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine according to the quota of the Congress of Judges of Ukraine.

That means, as of March 23, there is no minimum number of candidates to continue the competition for one of the two vacancies.

Therefore, given that for one of the two vacancies according to the quota of the Congress of Judges of Ukraine, the number of candidates who compliant with the criterion of high moral qualities is less than two persons for one vacant position of judge of the CCU, the Congress of Judges of Ukraine should announce a new competition for one of two vacant positions, as required by the Law of Ukraine "On the Constitutional Court of Ukraine".

Thus, there are legal grounds to be sure that the competition for one of the two vacant positions of a judge of the CCU under the quota of the Congress of Judges of Ukraine has ended due to an insufficient number of candidates to continue the competitive selection for this vacant position.

The Advisory Group of Experts will inform the Council of Judges of Ukraine about this, so that it can immediately take measures to announce a competition for a vacant position, for which the competition did not take place due to the lack of the minimum required number of candidates.

The efficiency of all involved subjects of competitive procedures for the selection of judges of the CCU is extremely important, because the process of filling vacant positions of judges and ensuring the effective functioning of one of the key state institutions – the Constitutional Court of Ukraine – also depends on it.

Assessment is not a verdict

The competitive assessment by the Advisory Group of Experts is quite uncompromising and accompanied unprecedented transparency, if compared with the previous procedures for the selection of CCU judges.

Considering the importance of this reform, the requirements are strict, in particular, regarding the integrity and legality of the sources of origin of the property.

The same high requirements regarding the assessment of the candidates' competence – the tasks on constitutional issues are difficult and the candidates will also perform them with live broadcasting under the close attention of the AGE and the public.

Such demandingness is dictated by the fact that at stake are positions on which, without exaggeration, depends the future fate and reputation of Ukraine, which is fighting for its survival in the war with russia. After all, an open, transparent and fair competition is a guarantee of admission of truly independent and professional judges to the CCU. And it is also one of the necessary steps on the way to the European integration of Ukraine.

Therefore, the AGE understands that such a serious competition became a real challenge for absolutely all candidates and not all of them managed to cope with it. It is obvious that this happened for various reasons - objective and subjective. Some of the candidates simply did not manage to dispel doubts, and some doubts are practically impossible to dispel.

In any case, the conclusion of the AGE "non-compliant" is not a verdict or a life-stamp, and the legislation and competitive procedures allow you to try again.

In view of the results of the stage of assessing the moral qualities of candidates in the competition for the quota of the Congress of Judges of Ukraine, it is expected that the competition for another one vacant position will soon be announced.

At the same time, the AGE appeals to Ukrainian professional lawyers – submit documents to participate in competition for the position of a judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, be honest and open to society, and perhaps you will become the next judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

And finally, we turn to the public – follow the activities of the Advisory Group of Experts, because a successful reform needs your attention and participation!

Advisory Group of Experts