From the announcement of the High Council of Justice we found out that on July 31, 2020 the High Council of Justice organizes public discussion of the draft Anti-Corruption Strategy in 2020-2024. Judges, representatives of the Council of Judges, the National School of Judges, judicial associations, the judiciary and the professional community are invited to participate in this event.
We, representatives of the Foundation DEJURE, the Anti-Corruption Action Center, the Center for Political and Legal Reforms and the All-Ukrainian NGO Automaydan, want to join the discussion of the draft Anti-Corruption Strategy together with representatives of the judiciary.
We systematically monitor processes related to the implementation of judicial reform in Ukraine and focus our efforts on ensuring the integrity and answerability of the judiciary. Specialists of our organizations are lawyers by profession, have academic degrees, and some of some have experience as judges.
The draft Anti-Corruption Strategy, developed by the National Agency for Corruption Prevention, contains important section dedicated to building the fair court in Ukraine (with the focus on anti-corruption measures). The document provides the number of measures aimed at ensuring integrity and transparency in activities of judges, courts and judicial authorities. So far, representatives of some organizations have been denied to participate in the discussion, with reference to the fact that the discussion will take place only within the judicial community. However, this answer does not agree with the information on the website of the High Council of Justice, according to which the discussion is public.
That is why we call on the High Council of Justice to show transparency and involve experts from our organizations in this discussion. We are convinced that full discussion of this document is impossible without dialogue between judges and representatives of the professional community and the public, which hope for the formation of fair court in Ukraine and is concerned about the judicial reform.
Center for Political and Legal Reforms centre@pravo.org.ua
Anti-Corruption Action Center office@antac.org.ua
All-Ukrainian NGO “Automaydan” automaidanoffice@gmail.com
Foundation DEJURE info@dejure.foundation