Judicial reform may continue if it does not contradict Constitution of Ukraine – Council of Europe
The Council of Europe has conducted a legal assessment of the decisions adopted by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine regarding the continuation of judicial reform, emphasized the importance of the reform's not contradicting the Constitution and considering the leading European standards in this area, the communications and legal monitoring department of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has reported.
According to the court, a letter was received from Head of the Justice and Legal Cooperation Department of the Council of Europe Hanne Juncher. In it, the court was informed that, in the framework of ongoing cooperation between the Council of Europe and Ukraine in the field of judicial reform, the Justice and Legal Cooperation Department under the Directorate-General for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, two recent decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine were assessed, namely No. 2-r/2020 dated February 18, 2020 and No. 4-r/2020 dated March 11, 2020.
The specified assessment was developed by an international expert involved in the department, who studies the decisions of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court and their compliance with European standards regarding the functioning and organization of the judiciary, as well as the recommendations set out in the Venice Commission's conclusion CDL-AD (2019) 027-e on the legal framework in Ukraine, which regulates activities of the Supreme Court and judicial authorities, adopted on December 9, 2019.
The said document, in particular, states that both decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine concern some key issues raised by the European Commission for Democracy through Law and emphasize the importance of its conclusion. It is also indicated that the decisions of the Constitutional Court clearly indicate that judicial reform can continue only if it does not contradict the Constitution and takes into account the leading European standards in this field. Therefore, in the future of the current judicial reform, the decisions of the Constitutional Court require the government to have a clear vision of the direction, priority and further steps that should be taken.
