Despite the disagreement of human rights defenders. Legal Aid Centre will be headed by Petrenko’s deputy Moroz

The Deputy Minister of Justice on State Registration Pavlo Moroz won the competition for the position of Director of the Coordinating Centre for Free Legal Aid Providing.

As reported by press-service of the department.

The corresponding decision was made by Olena Kosolapova, Acting State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, based on the results of the competition.

According to Kosolapova, she received proposals for two candidates – Pavlo Moroz and Oleksiy Shevchuk.

“Yesterday I personally interviewed these candidates, during which I heard a vision of the development of a free legal aid system. In addition, we analyzed the management experience of candidates, and on the basis of interviews I decided to elect Mr. Moroz for the post of Director of the Coordination Center”, – as the press-service has quoted Kosolapova.

Overall, 8 candidates submitted documents for participation in the contest, two of them were not admitted to the competition due to a lack of sufficient work experience, which is required by the terms of the competition.

The Ministry of Justice approved the procedure for holding a competition for the position of director of the center on May 12.

As a reminder, on June 1, the Open Civic Platform on Development of the Ukrainian free Legal Aid stated nonobjective competition for the position of Director of the Coordinating Centre for Legal Aid Providing and influenced its conduct.

Human rights defenders believe that the leadership of the Ministry of Justice has deliberately created the conditions for appointing an acting deputy minister to the post.

They argued that the Ministry of Justice has not provided equal opportunities for candidates, nor has established clear criteria for evaluation.

The members of the commission – the employees of the Ministry of Justice could not objectively evaluate the candidate – the deputy minister. The evaluation system (with a score from a commission member) also put candidates in unequal conditions: out of eight members of the commission, five were represented by the Ministry of Justice, and three by non-governmental organizations.

As a result, the opinions of the representatives of the central apparatus of the Ministry of Justice and the public on the issue of determining the winner of the contest turned out to be radically opposite.

Director of the Ukrainian Foundation for Legal Aid Mykola Sioma, who was present during the interviews as an observer, stated that the best and most competent candidate was Myroslav Lavrinok, who is currently the Acting Director of the Centre for Legal Aid Providing.

In April, 19 organizations urged the Ministry of Justice to hold a tender for the post of director of the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid Providing as soon as possible, since the director of the centre, Andriy Vyshnevsky, was appointed Deputy Minister of Justice on April 19.