Council of Judges deliberately delays Ethics Council formation – DEJURE
The Council of Judges deliberately delays the formation of the Ethics Council and threatens judicial reform in Ukraine, according to the Democracy Justice Reforms (DEJURE) foundation.
"Despite the provisions of the law on the cleansing of the HCJ [High Council of Justice], where the Council of Judges was given time until September 13 to delegate its candidates to the Ethics Council, which clears the HCJ, on the morning of September 21 the Council of Judges adopted the Regulation on the selection of candidates for delegation to the Ethics Council on the quota of judges and set aside a month for the submission of documents by candidates," DEJURE said in a statement on its website on Tuesday.
The foundation said in the press release that according to the vote of the Council of Judges, candidates are entitles to submit documents from September 22 to October 21, 2021 inclusive. All those present, namely 27 members of the Council of Judges, voted for the Regulations and deadlines for submitting documents.
"The law does not require the Council of Judges to adopt any provisions. The Council of Judges was supposed to decide in August how the judges were delegated to the Ethics Council. Instead, it pretended that the formation of the Ethics Council did not concern it. Now, when all the deadlines have been missed, the Council of Judges will wait for the candidacy for the whole October, and then it will again be able to fail the vote. Such actions are nothing more than a simple wasting of time, aimed solely at preventing the cleaning of the HCJ of dishonest members and ensuring that it is the uncleaned HCJ that will form the new HQCJ [High Qualification Commission of Judges]. Head of the Council of Judges Bohdan Monych is personally responsible for the delay and possible failure of the judicial reform," DEJURE advocacy manager Stepan Berko said.
It is also noted that at the meeting on September 13, the Council of Judges did not support any of the four candidates who expressed their willingness to become members of the Ethics Council, designed to cleanse the High Council of Justice.
