Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada has adopted in full a measure providing for the functioning of the new Supreme Court as venue for appeals cases and amending relevant procedural court mechanisms.

Some 234 deputies on Tuesday voted for the measure, law No. 6232, which amends the Economic and Civil Procedural Codes, the Code on Administrative Legal Proceedings of Ukraine and other legislative acts. A simple majority, or 226, is required for such measures to pass.

One of the main innovations of the law is the definition of the Supreme Court as a single cassation body in Ukraine and the introduction of a new procedure for the Supreme Court to consider cases.

The parliament's main scientific and expert department said in its conclusions that the bill is aimed at limiting the range of cases that fall under cassation, which narrows the constitutional rights of the subjects of judicial decisions, and this can lead to a significant increase in the number of cases of appeals against judgments of national courts at the European Court of Human Rights.

The draft law provides for the adoption of decisions by a chamber, a joint chamber or the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court. A panel of judges may refer the case to the chamber, which includes this panel, or the joint chamber or the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, if it does not agree with the practice of law enforcement in such legal relations.

"In our opinion, the proposed procedure is ambiguous with respect to the judicial body, which will be responsible for the final decision on the issue of law enforcement, which can lead to ambiguous interpretation of judicial practice," the scientific and expert department said.

According to the new wording of the Civil Procedure Code and the Code on Administrative Offenses, a defendant, a third person, or a witness, whose place of residence, location or work is unknown, will be summoned to court through an announcement on the official web portal of the judicial authority of Ukraine.

For non-fulfillment of procedural duties, abuse of procedural rights and other violations, a fine may be imposed as a measure of procedural coercion.

According to the new wording of the Economic Procedure Code, the High Court on Intellectual Property will function in the system of economic legal proceedings.

The document also envisages review of the rates of a court fee.

The authors of the legislative initiative said in an explanatory note that the document suggests strengthening the role of the court fee as the main source of financing the judicial system.

The law also includes the rules by which an "electronic court" is introduced. It provides for the functioning of a single judicial information and telecommunications system.

According to the text of the bill in the wording of the concerned committee, lawsuits, other applications, complaints and other procedural documents that are submitted to the courts and can be subject to judicial review must be registered in this system in the order they are received. The system determines a judge or a panel of judges who will consider a particular case. The single judicial information and telecommunications system ensures the exchange of documents in electronic form between the courts and participants in the trial, as well as the recording of the trial and the participation of the parties to the trial in a videoconference.

In this system, official e-mail addresses are registered by lawyers, notaries, private executors, state bodies, local government agencies, as well as business entities of the state and municipal sectors of the economy. Other persons are registered voluntarily in the system.

The parliament's main scientific and expert department said in its conclusions that "the proposal of the draft law on the creation of the so-called 'electronic court' needs a more thorough examination and now looks premature."

The authors of the legislative initiative said in the explanatory note that the draft Code on Administrative Legal Proceedings, in particular, includes a novel – a procedural mechanism for considering standard cases, following the example of a Supreme Court decision in one of such cases (an example case).

They also note that the Criminal Code of Ukraine will include changes criminalizing the provision of knowingly unreliable or forged evidence to the court.