The High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine has defined members of the Public Council of International Experts who will take part in selection of anti-corruption judges. However, the Qualification Commission did not guarantee proper conditions for their work.
However, the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) delayed the process of forming the Public Council for a month and a half.
Thus, the HQCJ has almost halved the time during which international experts should analyze all candidates for positions of anti-corruption judges.
The role of international experts is to facilitate the Qualification Commission’s assessment of integrity and professionalism of candidates to the High Anti-Corruption Court.
If international experts have doubts about integrity and professionalism regarding particular candidate, they will initiate consideration of this issue at joint session with the HQCJ.
If at least three of six members of the PCIE vote for the fact that integrity and professionalism of any candidate is not confirmed, such candidate will be excluded from the competition. So, international experts will have opportunity to block doubtful candidates.
However, conditions for full and proper performance of responsibilities by international experts are not guaranteed at the time. After all, the HQCJ did not adopt the procedure for obtaining access to full candidates’ dossiers by international experts and their translators.
Today, it is not known whether international experts will have access to practical tasks performed by candidates within the framework of exam.
Without this, experts will not have opportunity to evaluate future anti-corruption judges, according to the Law on the High Ant-Corruption Court.
After international experts complete their work and define which candidates should be disqualified, the Qualification Commission of Judges will shortlist winners of the competition from remaining candidates at their own discretion.
It will depend on the HQCJ who will receive the highest scores and become the judge of the new High Anti-Corruption Court – the most worthy candidates or vice versa “dark-horse candidates”.
So far, the methodology for final ranking of candidates leaves room for manipulation, since 79% of the maximum score is put at the discretion of the HQCJ members. Only 21% of the total score is the result of test.