5 February 2020 was the last day the HCJ could form the Ethics Commission and the HQCJ according to law 193-IX. The HCJ deliberately blocked the formation of the Ethics Commission and the HQCJ Selection Commission.

On January 29, 2020, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, on its session, supported the draft law “On amending certain laws of Ukraine (regarding the improvement of the procedure of creation and activities of arbitration courts to restore the trust in the arbitration proceedings)” and submitted it to the Parliament for further consideration.

During the last three years, the DEJURE Foundation is working to establish a child-friendly justice system in Ukraine. Here is a list of our accomplishments this far.

On 10 December the High Council of Justice (HCJ) adopted a Regulation on the competition for the positions at the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ). The DEJURE Foundation experts have analyzed the draft Regulation and concluded that the Regulation reduces to nothing the role of foreign experts in the selection of new HQCJ members.

Yesterday the Parliament adopted a long-anticipated draft law #1008 on judicial governance bodies. However, the draft law was adopted not without some unforeseen circumstances.

On October 1, the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy considered amendments to the draft law #1008 on judicial self-governance bodies. Mykhailo Zhernakov, Chairman of the Board of the DEJURE Foundation, and advocacy manager Stepan Berko attended the committee's meeting and analyzed committee's decisions.

On September 27, DEJURE Foundation held The Formation of the High Anti-Corruption Court in Ukraine: Lessons Learned and Way Forward discussion within the framework of The Human Dimension Meeting 2019 in Warsaw.

DEJURE Foundation invites you to visit the international discussion on the results of the formation and competition to the Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court. The discussion will take place on September 27, 2019 at The Human Dimension Implementation Meeting 2019 in Warsaw (Poland).

Civil society organizations working on the issues of judicial and anti-corruption reforms urge to organize a new competition for the Deputy Chief of Staff of the HACC position, and not to appoint Oksana Litvinova for this position.

The proposal of the DEJURE Foundation to replace the members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) and the High Council of Judges with the goal of carrying out a real cleaning up of the judiciary.

More than 100 civil society organizations, including the DEJURE Foundation, are turning to the head of state requesting revision of the judicial reform.

During a regular meeting of the High Qualification Commission of Judges today, June 12, this falsified process became quickly apparent with the Facebook post of one member of the HQCJ. After the voting related to judge Inna Hryban concluded, a member of the HQCJ wrote that he is not prepared to accept the "fruitlessness" of his vote and is "washing his hands of the process."

The next important step in the fight for the independent Anti-Corruption court is the appointment of the head of its apparatus. This position is not technical at all. A political interest attached to it is no smaller than the one for the judicial positions in the court. Whether there will be information leaks and whether the court will start operating on the expected date, to a great extent depends on the elected official.

Ihor Kolomoiskyi's lawsuit regarding Privatbank nationalization was reviewed by Ihor Kachur, Volodymyr Keleberda and Vitalii Amelokhin, judges of the notorious District Administrative Court of Kyiv (the DACK), whose integrity was legitimately cast doubt on.

Over the past few weeks, DEJURE Foundation experts have been observing an alarming trend: disciplinary action has been used as a threat to pressure some candidates who applied for vacancies at the High Anti-Corruption Court.

NGO urge the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine to ensure proper conditions for the international experts' work and to adopt rules that will ensure transparency in the competition for the High Anti-Corruption Court.

Analysts from the Centre of Policy and Legal Reform and DEJURE Foundation tracked and recorded the course of the competition to the Supreme Court and prepared an analytical report thereon.

President Zelensky and his party got unprecedented support from the people in the last year’s elections. They convinced many people with promises to dismiss the old corrupt judiciary, and imprison those who deserve it as early as “spring comes”. Now spring came, but the effective justice reform did not. The ambitious law enforcement reforms stopped, and the judicial reform did not even have a chance to start. What are the reasons? And is there a way to remedy the situation?

Last week the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) adopted its decision on the law 193-IX, which envisaged the next step of judicial reform. The law was initiated by President Zelenskyi in August last year and approved by the Parliament in October. Shortly after the law entered into force, the Supreme Court (SC) questioned its constitutionality.

In the article for Kyivpost, Iryna Shyba wrote about the good, bad, and ugly decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in recent years.

The article looks at consequences for plagiarism by judges and other legal professionals around the world and considers what principles should be used when holding them accountable.

The country's judicial system remains one of the least trusted public institutions and a major obstacle to foreign direct investment.

Why the competition to the Supreme Court is so important for the Anti-Corruption reform

President Petro Poroshenko called them a threat to Ukraine's sovereignty, while civil society said they were a new hope for judicial reform. But what are the actual results of the international experts' involvement in the High Anti-Corruption Court competition, and how will it affect judicial reform in general?