Zelenskyy appoints more than a hundred judges
9 May 2024 09:19
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed decrees appointing 116 judges. The relevant decrees were published on the website of the President’s Office, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports
These are the first decrees on the appointment of judges since 2022.
The report states that the decrees relate to three categories:
- judges whose five-year term of office has expired and who have passed the qualification assessment of judges already under the new composition of the HQCJ
- participants of the 2017 judicial selection process who were interviewed by the new HQCJ and HCJ
- a group of judicial candidates whose applications were returned by the then Presidential Administration to the HCJ in 2016 and from there to the HQCJ. These candidates were also interviewed by the new HQCJ and HCJ.
According to Iryna Mudra, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office, as of today, between 22% and 61% of judicial positions remain unfilled, depending on the specialisation and level of court.
“Some courts do not administer justice due to the absence of judges. This affects both the access to justice for citizens and businesses and the workload of judges, and as a result, it affects the timeframe for consideration of cases. It is clear that the problem will not be completely solved immediately after the signing of the decrees, as the announced competitions will last until 2025, but this is definitely the “light at the end of the tunnel”,
– the statement said .
It should be noted that the selection of new judges has not been carried out since 2019. This was due to the termination of the powers of the HQCJ (High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine).
