The Supreme Court filed an appeal against judicial reform in the Constitutional court

The Supreme Court requests the Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the elimination of high specialized courts and an introduction of the competitive selection of judges.

The news agency “Ukrainski novyny” communicates that the decision was adopted by the plenum of the Supreme Court on Monday.

In its submission, the Supreme Court asked the Constitutional Court to recognize unconstitutional provisions of the new law “On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges”. It states that current Supreme Court and 4 specialized courts will be eliminated and a new Supreme Court with 5 chambers will be created.

The head of the Supreme Court Yaroslav Romanyuk considers that this situation violates the procedure of the elimination of courts.

“The President has the authority to eliminate courts. In this case, the decision to eliminate Supreme Court and specialized courts were taken by the Parliament”, – said Romanyuk.

The plenum also considers the unconstitutional competitive selection of judges to the new Supreme Court.

Members of the plenum believe that the reform violates the appointment of the judges who already served 5 years.

The plenum also believes that judicial reform, which came into force on September 30,  introduces inequality among judges: judges who succeeded in the selection process and passed a qualification assessment will receive much higher salary than other judges.

“The law was adopted emotionally, situationally”, – stated Romanyuk.

He believes that the law “On the Judicial System and Status of Judges” was adopted as a result of political agreements.

The head of the Council of Judges Valentyna Symonenko supported the Supreme Court’s appeal to the Constitutional Court.

Yaroslav Romanyuk said that he will participate in the competition to the new Supreme Court. He does not see any contradiction between this and initiated  by him constitutional petition to declare unconstitutional competitive selection to the Supreme Court.

On September 30, amendments to the law “On the Judicial System and Status of Judges” came into force. In accordance with them, specialized courts are eliminated and a new Supreme Court establishes as a single court of cassation.

Altogether, 200 judges have to be selected.