Yesterday, The Supreme Court “paved the way for cancelling Ukraine’s judicial reform,” Kyiv Post wrote. Judicial reform is one of the most important steps to secure companies both Western and Ukrainian against corruption.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine has asked the Constitutional Court to consider whether or not President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s judicial reform is constitutional. This has landed a harsh criticism from Kyiv Post, because the Constitutional Court is considered somewhat dubious. Kyiv Post also quoted Mykhailo Zhernakov from the think tank Dejure.
“They are de facto paving the way for destroying the judicial reform through the Constitutional Court, which has already (destroyed) the laws on asset declarations, illicit enrichment and unlawful court rulings,” Mykhailo Zhernakov wrote.
As Ukraine Nu has previously described, the judicial reform is divided into two bills. One bill builds the foundation for a council that can fire and hire members of the High Council of Judges. The High Council on the other hand is the people who can fire and appoint judges. It will consist of three Ukrainian judges and three international experts.
For long, the justice system has been opposing the judicial reform. Previously they have straight up refused implementing similar legislation. They also failed to appoint the three judges for the council in time, essentially stalling the reform.
Judicial reform in Ukraine is very high on the list of things that could benefit Western companies. Several times, the rule of law has been mentioned by experts, CEO’s other business men as the main problem for companies operating here.
The last example is the cases of Scania Ukraine, that has been sued by former business partners in rather absurd cases. Another example is the solar energy company TIU Canada’s uphill battle against oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
