Changes in the composition of the Advisory Group helping with the competition for judges of the Constitutional Court

Changes in the composition of the Advisory Group helping with the competition for judges of the Constitutional Court 

Draft bill #8302 of December 23, 2022 

Cosponsors: a group of MPs from the European Solidarity faction

Who is affected: candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court, the President, the Parliament, the Cabinet, and Ukrainian citizens

Summary of the bill:

• the Advisory Group will consist of 7 members. To become a member, a person must have an impeccable professional reputation, high professional qualities, moral integrity, and public recognition
• besides the representatives of the President, the Parliament, and the Congress of Judges, the Advisory Group will also include two members from the Venice Commission and two members from international organizations that provided international technical assistance for the last five years
• representatives of the congress of law schools and the conference of the representatives of civic associations will be excluded from the process of the appointment of the Advisory Group’s members

• members of the Advisory Group will have to participate in person and will not be allowed to delegate their powers to other persons
• candidates deemed “unsuitable” by the Advisory Group due to insufficient competency in law will not be allowed to continue their participation in the competition.

Background information: on December 14, the Verkhovna Rada adopted draft bill #7662 defining a new selection procedure for judges of the Constitutional Court. We reviewed it in detail in our special edition digest.

What is right: the draft bill fulfills the requirements of the European Commission regarding the shortcomings of the previously adopted selection procedure for judges of the CCU.

What is wrong:

• the draft bill does not amend the crucial shortcomings of the current procedure. The Advisory Group is not a selection committee or government body. It cannot make final decisions about the candidates since it is not conducting the competition but only assists the selection committees with preliminary evaluations of the moral and professional qualities of the candidates
• the Advisory Group cannot have the authority to give or deny permission for candidates to participate in the competition for judges of the CCU. The competitions are conducted by the selection committees under the President, the parliamentary committee, and the Congress of Judges. They are the ones with the power to support or reject the candidates. In this respect, the draft bill is even worse than the current version of the law.

Alternative solution: there is no need to create an Advisory Group to make substantial changes in the selection process of the CCU judges. The whole process should be reconsidered: the creation of a new auxiliary body will not change the shortcomings of the whole system.