JUSTICE REFORM AGENDA

for the Presidential Candidates of Ukraine
JUSTICE REFORM AGENDA
for the Presidential Candidates of Ukraine
Establishing justice and the rule of law principle was one of the requirements of the Revolution of Dignity. This request remains relevant today.

Judicial reform has been going on for the past five years, yet, still has not reached the desired level: less than 1% of citizens consider it to be quite successful, and courts still have one of the lowest levels of trust and support from among all social institutions.1

Injustice in the justice system is considered a serious problem for Ukraine by 89% of citizens.2




Leading NGOs involved in key reforms call on Presidential Candidates to submit their proposals to address the main issues of the Justice Reform
1
Issue:
Qualitative renewal of the judiciary and ensuring the accountability of the courts to society
Questions:
Are you ready to entrust the representatives of the public and international experts with the upgrade and clearing of the judiciary and to ensure the full transparency of this process?

Do you support the idea of entrusting the public with effective control over the activities of courts?
2
Issue:
Ensuring the political independence of the Constitutional Court and the judicial branch
Question:
Can you guarantee the absence of political influence on the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the High Anticorruption Court and other courts, the process of appointing judges and their activities, and the inevitability of punishment for such influence?
3
Issue:
Engagement of citizens in the legal proceedings
Question:
Do you support the launch of a full jury trial and the introduction of justice of the peace?
4
Issue:
Ensuring an adequate quality of staff in the prosecution, advocacy and court system
Question:
Do you support the increase in standards for the training of lawyers, the introduction of a single qualification examination for legal professions, and a full upgrade of investigative, prosecution agencies and advocacy bodies?
The list of these issues is not exhaustive. However, we would like to see a clear position of candidates regarding these issues in the first place.
We call on all presidential candidates to publicly state their vision of resolving issues on this agenda.
For our part, we are ready to offer the necessary solutions.
47% of the Ukrainian public trust NGOs to clean the judiciary, meanwhile only 8% — give their trust to judges themselves. 42% of the citizens are willing to entrust NGOs with creating the Anti-Corruption Court, and 41% — would vest this in the experts from the western countries.

The vision of NGOs as to addressing these challenges, as well as other top-priority steps in the justice reform is outlined in the New Justice System: Manifesto and RPR Roadmap of Reforms.
We welcome other NGOs to support this agenda.
Please, feel free to reach out to us: dejure.foundation@gmail.com
Justice Reform Agenda supported by:
Andriy Sadovyi
Dmytro Gnap
Volodymyr Zelenskyi
Anatoliy Hrytsenko
Ruslan Koshulynskyi
1 A nationwide survey of the Ukrainian population How Corruption is Fought in Ukraine — Citizens' Opinion, conducted by Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with the Razumkov Centre's Sociological Service from May 19 to May 25, 2018. 2019 respondents from the age of 18 years onwards were interviewed. The theoretical sample error does not exceed 2.3%. ↑

2 According to the National Anticorruption Survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology within the framework of the Join Us! program to promote public activity. The research was conducted from July to August 2018. The sample comprises 10,169 respondents, the theoretical sample error is 1%. ↑