On June 19 this year, the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine plans to decide on the appointment of qualification evaluation of candidates for vacant positions in the courts of appeal and the High Anti-Corruption Court, as well as to determine the order of stages of the qualification exam and the timeline of the competitions.
This was emphasized by Deputy Chairman of the HQCJU Ruslan Sydorovych on
June 13, 2024, speaking at the XII International Judicial and Legal Forum organized by the Yurydychna Praktyka Publishing House.
The Commission hopes that the first stage, the legal knowledge test, will be completed by the end of August. This will make it possible to complete the qualification exam in November as part of the competitions to the courts of appeal and the HACC. It is currently just a project.
According to Ruslan Sydorovych, the problematic issue in these competitions is cognitive testing, as this type of testing has not been used in the Commission’s practice of holding competitions before and, accordingly, the available tests are not entirely relevant for candidates for judicial positions. Therefore, it is important that the cognitive testing of candidates gives a positive result.
The Deputy Chairman of the Commission shared the positive experience of the HQCJ members over the year of their work. In particular, he spoke about the competition for 560 vacant judicial positions in local courts. Candidates were free to choose the courts they intended to work in without any interference from the Commission. Based on the results of open interviews with the winners, 390 candidates were recommended for appointment to the position of judge.
“The interviews helped us to eliminate those people who have no place in the court. After all, it made it possible to find out the circumstances that indicated that the candidate did not meet the level of integrity required by the high status of a judge. If we say that the process of appointment to the position of a judge should be fully trustworthy, then the interview stage is important in this context”, – noted Ruslan Sydorovych.
At the same time, the Deputy Chairman of the Commission drew attention to the aspect of publicity during the interviews, as it discourages many professional and honest lawyers from participating in such competitions. We currently do not know how to solve this problem.
The XII International Judicial and Legal Forum will last for two days. It is attended by deputies, representatives of judicial governance and self-government bodies, as well as judges, attorneys and other representatives of the legal community.
