Ukraine - annual report 2019

Details: Published: July 1, 2020

Valentina Danishevska, President of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, and Christian Schmitz-Justen, Vice President of the Higher Regional Court of Cologne, Project Leader, during the closing ceremony in Kiev (Photo: Supreme Court of Ukraine)

Strategic Framework

Legal Policy Starting Point

The reporting year was dominated by the Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections. Volodymyr Zelensky emerged as the winner in the run-off for the presidential elections on 21 April 2019. The President‘s newly founded party ‘Servant of the People‘ achieved an absolute majority in the early parliamentary elections in July, which had initially been scheduled for October. The President declared that the most important goals of his tenure, besides the desired progress in the conflict over eastern Ukraine, would include policy to combat corruption. He intends to continue along the path of European integration. Zelensky disbanded the Constitutional Commission set up by his predecessor to reform the Constitution and established a Legal Reform Committee with several working groups specialising in specific legal areas. The newly constituted Verhovna Rada rapidly introduced numerous legislation projects, many of which have already been adopted, among them the abolition of parliamentary immunity or the renewed reform of the new Judicial Organisation Act ratified in 2016. The Plenum of the Supreme Court, which was not re-established until 2017 and whose number of judges is to be halved by the law amending the Judicial Organisation Act, submitted this law to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

Overall Concept

In 2019, cooperation with Ukraine was again funded firstly by the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, and secondly by the Federal Foreign Office within the project “Strengthening Constitutional Court Jurisdiction and the Judiciary/Administration of Justice in Ukraine“, which was launched in August 2018. Cooperation prioritised work with the Constitutional Court in matters relating to the constitutional complaint, which was introduced in 2016, as well as with the Supreme Court and, furthermore, with the administrative jurisdiction, which is particularly important for the rule of law. The judiciary as a whole was supported by further training for judges carried out together with the Judges Association of Ukraine as well as within the framework of the professional exchange between the Kiev Appeal Court and the Oldenburg Higher Regional Court, which has been maintained since 2016. Cooperation in the areas of policy to combat corruption and the promotion of consumer protection will be intensified in the future.

On 22 February 2019, a new work programme was agreed on the Joint Declaration on Cooperation of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, already signed in March 2017. In this framework, a working visit was carried out on the penitentiary system/open prison enforcement and, in the important area of policy to combat corruption, a working visit on covert investigations.

In Kiev, IRZ organised expert talks on mediation in connection with the “Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction“ and other expert talks on the “Hague Convention on Maintenance Obligations“.

IRZ also resumed cooperation with its Ukrainian partners to reform notarial law. In previous years, IRZ had already provided intensive advice in this field.

A small anniversary was celebrated in the reporting year with the tenth course of German-language supplementary studies at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv as an introduction to German law. IRZ will remain committed to this promotion of law students and young legal professionals in the future.

Focus of Activity in 2019

Constitutional Law/Human Rights and their Enforceability

Several expert discussions with judges of the Ukrainian Constitutional Court and academic staff of the Constitutional Court in Bonn and Kiev
Working visit by academic staff of the Constitutional Court to the Federal Constitutional Court, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and the European Court of Human Rights

Civil and Commercial Law

Trilateral working visit to Berlin on consumer protection (for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova)
Expert discussions at the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice on “Mediation in connection with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction“ and the Hague Convention on Maintenance in Kiev

Public Law

Regional further training for administrative judges on administrative court procedure law in Kramatorsk (at the Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeal, which had been transferred there) and several specialist conferences with the Administrative Cassation Court at the Supreme Court in Kiev
15th German-Ukrainian Colloquium on Administrative Court Procedure at the Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate in Koblenz
Expert talks in Kiev and Bonn on civil and criminal procedure law with the Ukrainian Supreme Court
Mutual working visits with expert talks between representatives of the Oldenburg Higher Regional Court and the Kiev Appeal Court
Further training for judges with the Judges Association of Ukraine on the subject of court mediation in Lviv
Workshop on drafting of the Ukrainian draft legislation on mediation in Wustrau and Berlin and further training of Ukrainian mediators in Berlin
Participation of a German expert at a conference of the Razumkow Centre on the issue of non-execution of court judgements in Kiev
German-Ukrainian expert talks on notarial law in Berlin and Kiev

Criminal Law and Penitentiary Law

Working visit to Aurich by the Qualification and Disciplinary Committee of Prosecutors of Ukraine on law governing the profession of public prosecutors
Working visit to Berlin by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine on the penitentiary system (prioritising the open prison enforcement)
Working visit to Bonn by a delegation from the Judges Association of Ukraine on the subject of investigative judges
Expert talks on the law of lawyers (prioritising criminal defence) with the Ukrainian Bar Association in Odessa
Working visit to Berlin by a delegation from the Ukrainian Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor‘s Office on policy to combat corruption

Basic and Further Training

Supplementary studies as an introduction to German law at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (tenth course)
Research trip to Munich for the best graduates of this IRZ supplementary studies at the University of Lviv (postponed to 2020)

Project funded by the EU

EU Twinning Project: Strengthening the institutional capacity of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in the field of human rights protection at the national level

This EU Twinning Project was implemented by IRZ and the Latvian Ministry of Justice as the junior partner and was brought to a successful conclusion in 2019 after a term of 28 months. Equipped with a budget of around €1.3 million, the project aimed to support the Supreme Court, reorganised as a court of Cassation in 2017, in its alignment with European standards. It consisted essentially of the following components:

Drafting of proposals for the improvement of appeals law in Ukraine
Training of newly appointed judges
Improving the workflows of judges and court staff
Public access to information on case-law

This year, the project owners were able to enlarge on and successfully complete the planned support for all three components by providing further workshops, seminars and training for judges and Supreme Court staff.

High-ranking experts from Germany, the Netherlands and Austria joined with Ukrainian Supreme Court judges and representatives from the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, the Public Prosecutor‘s Office, the legal profession and other relevant institutions to draft proposals for improving appeal law in Ukraine, which were presented at the end of the project.

In addition, the Ukrainian judges were given insight into the practical work of the Supreme Courts as well as public relations within the judiciary during two study trips to Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. During the final conference of the project on 21 June in Kiev, the President of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, Valentina Danishevska, emphasised the special importance of the project at a time of Supreme Court reform.

Outlook

IRZ will support the reform projects envisaged by Verhovna Rada and the new government in line with European standards for the rule of law, depending on the possibilities and needs of the Ukrainian partners. It also plans to participate in the reform of the Public Prosecutor‘s Office by providing meaningful further training. Support for Ukraine‘s efforts in the fight against corruption will also continue, also in the framework of the Joint Declaration of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice, whose work programme IRZ will continue to implement in coordination with the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection.

Going forward, IRZ will also cooperate with its main partners and promote law students and young legal professionals, which has been in place now for ten years, by organising the German-language IRZ supplementary studies on German law at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.