The candidate for the position of judge will be assessed not only on his knowledge of law and history, but also on his cognitive abilities
10 December 2024 14:49
The President of Ukraine has signed amendments to the Law “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges”, which defines the specifics of the qualification exam for candidates for the position of judge. Information about the signing of the relevant law No. 11425-d by the head of state is available on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
The law stipulates that the qualification exam is conducted through anonymous testing and practical tasks.
“Anonymous testing is conducted on cognitive abilities, history of Ukrainian statehood, general knowledge of law and one or more court specializations of choice: administrative, commercial and general (civil and criminal). Practical tasks are conducted in relation to the court specialization(s) chosen by the candidate. The form and content of tests, practical tasks, as well as the procedure for their conduct are approved by the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine,” the document says.
The law also defines the conditions under which the exam is considered to be successfully passed.
A candidate for the position of a judge is considered to have passed the qualification exam in the chosen specialization of the court if he or she
– scored at least 75 percent of the maximum possible score in the test on the history of Ukrainian statehood, general knowledge of law and the relevant court specialization;
– scored at least 75 percent of the maximum possible score for the practical task on the relevant court specialization;
– successfully passed the cognitive skills test. Successful passing is considered to be the candidate’s achievement of the average permissible score of the cognitive ability test set by the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine.
It is also emphasized that the course of the qualification exam is recorded by means of video and sound recording equipment, and information on the results of the qualification exam is publicly available and published on the official website of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine.
Thus, it can be assumed that the public will learn not only about the fact that a particular candidate passed or failed the qualification exam, but also about the marks he or she received in the tests on the history of Ukrainian statehood, general knowledge of law and the relevant specialization of the court, and the results of the practical task and cognitive skills test. The latter is of particular interest to people familiar with the work of judges.
And by the way, on October 23, 2024, the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine has already made a decision on the peculiarities of cognitive testing during the qualification assessment of candidates for the position of judge in the competition for vacant positions of judges in the courts of appeal.
How cognitive abilities testing will be conducted
The decision of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine defines not only the procedure for conducting cognitive abilities testing, but also the methodology for evaluating its results.
It is noted that anonymous testing of cognitive abilities is part of the qualification exam and is conducted by measuring the levels of
– verbal intelligence,
– abstract and logical intelligence.
Testing is carried out using computer technology and with the help of an automated tool for measuring psychological and other personality characteristics “PSYMETRICS”. Each PSYMETRICS test – abstract-logical and verbal – consists of tasks of different types and levels of difficulty and is equipped with an adaptive question delivery mechanism (Computer Adaptive Testing – CAT), in which each subsequent question is presented to the examinee from the question bank automatically, taking into account the difficulty index of the previous question and the correctness or incorrectness of the answer.
If you answer a question correctly, the next question is presented with an increased level of difficulty, which provides a more accurate measurement of each examinee’s abilities.
The results of each test in the PSYMETRICS tool are calculated using standardized IQ scores on a scale from 55 to 145 points, where 55-69 points are very low; 70-85 points are low; 86-92 points are below average; 93-107 points are average; 108-115 points are above average; 116-130 points are high; and 131-145 points are very high.
