Qualification Commission of Judges hides dossiers of candidates to Supreme Court

High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) has not released dossiers of candidates to the Supreme Court. According to the law this had to be done two months ago.

This was stated by Leonid Maslov, a member of the Public Integrity Council (PIC), during the expert discussion.

“Even journalists asked to provide access to the files, but were denied citing the fact that this information is confidential. But, in my opinion, High Qualification Commission of Judges could have opened at least certain files for the Public Integrity Council”, – as press service of CHESNO movement has quoted Leonid Maslov. He noted that information that is publicly available is not enough for Public Integrity Council.

Halina Chyzhyk, the coordinator of the Public Integrity Council, is convinced that classifying information on candidates imposes negative impact on the whole process.

If the person agreed to contest to the Supreme Court, then they should have disclosures part of the files themselves, since they become public figures. So says Andriy Kozlov, the Member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges.

“A candidate to the Supreme Court should be clearly identified. High Qualification Commission of Judges every day gets a lot of new information, therefore, we cannot open the dossiers in parts. Moreover, it is not provided by the legislation, nor is defined the status of Public Integrity Council. It can be argued that due to imperfectly prescribed laws we cannot determine the powers of authorities, who are actively involved in shaping the judiciary”,- he said.

Andriy Kozlov also warns about the conclusions of Public Integrity Council and indicates the broad field of high-profile speculation on this subject.

“If candidate for the post of judge in the Supreme Court scored enough points and can receive a recommendation for the appointment, but has a negative conclusion of the Public Integrity Council, then the Commission must consider this specific case and, if necessary, consider the candidate or with 11 votes to exclude him”, – added Andriy Kozlov.

Natalya Petrova, the Deputy project manager of USAID Nove Pravosuddya (New Justice), considers that the crisis of confidence is a factor that most hinders cooperation between High Qualification Commission of Judges and Public Integrity Council.

“The priority task of the authorities – learn to trust each other in order to form the Supreme Court, in which will be respectable and professional people. Many changes were introduced to the procedure of selection of candidates: written test, evaluation of psychological qualities, from motivation to ability to resist influence and stress and, of course, interviews. The competition must take place and must not necessarily focus on the 200 judges, for the Supreme Court to function only 65 judges is enough”, – she said.

According to the High Qualification Commission of Judges, list of candidates admitted to the qualification evaluation is planned to be published by the end of this week. On February 16, candidates will pass the first stage of the competition – written test. After test Commission plans to analyze the results and set a passing score.

On February 21, candidates will work on practical tasks. They have to model the lawsuit and write an indictment. Then they will be tested for moral and psychological qualities and by the middle of March interviews must be held.

New Supreme Court must start functioning in April.

As a reminder, earlier CHESNO movement named infamous candidates for the position of judges in the Supreme Court. The candidates are from the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Court of Ukraine, as well as from the High Specialized Court.

In December 2016, the CHESNO movement reported that only 29% of the candidates for the Supreme Court are not related to judicial system.

The CHESNO movement also encourages to send any information that shows negligence of candidates, using the special CHESNO form https://goo.gl/Z9Nd0L, or by sending an e-mail to the Public Integrity Council – info.grd.ua@gmail.com.

A complete list of candidates to the Supreme Court of Ukraine can be found at this link.

Earlier, Andriy Kozlov, a member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, suggested that publicity will lose the fight for conscientious judiciary. Since the people living near the judges and who can see how they live will not inform the Public Integrity Council and the High Qualification Commission of Judges about the facts of negligence of candidates.