On Dec. 13, the Verkhovna Rada lastly adopted a legislation on the liquidation of the District Administrative Court docket of Kyiv (DACK), regarded as by a lot of the most odious court in Ukraine, as it has long been a symbol of judicial corruption. In the course of its 18 many years of its existence, the DACK is finest remembered for banning protests in situations of the Revolution of Dignity, halting the qualification assessment of judges, blocking the SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office environment) competitors, obstructing protection reforms, and many other anti-Ukrainian choices.

 

Publication of the so-called “Vovk’s tapes” (named immediately after the infamous head of the courtroom Pavlo Vovk in whose workplace the wiretapping was made) in 2019 and 2020 by NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) proved the interference of the DACK judges in the do the job of other condition bodies and attempts to seize state energy. Moreover, as mentioned by Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the NSDC (Nationwide Security and Protection Council), it was the DACK, according to the strategy of its Russian curators, which was meant to build a lawful framework for the return to energy in Ukraine of fugitive ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, who flew to Minsk in early March 2022, anticipating the seize of Kyiv by Russian troops.

 

The reality of the issue is that the DACK was the court docket with too much jurisdiction about virtually each individual institution that was bodily positioned in Kyiv. As a result, it thought of all conditions versus all countrywide condition bodies. This sort of powers made it just one of the most influential courts in Ukraine and its judges – some of the most corrupt.

 

President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted a draft legislation on the liquidation of DACK to the Verkhovna Rada back in the spring of 2021 in response to yet another corruption scandal close to the head of the court docket, Pavlo Vovk. However, the draft regulation gathered dust in the Parliament for about 20 months. Having said that, only 3 days just after the United States sanctioned Vovk and two of his spouse and children customers, the legislation was voted in total. 

 

President Zelensky signed the draft regulation the same working day, and it came into power on Dec 15. 

 

Now what?

On the working day the legislation entered into force, the DACK stopped administering justice. Its scenarios will be quickly transferred to the Kyiv District Administrative Court docket, its twin court docket, which has jurisdiction more than the Kyiv area. 

 

In the meantime, the legislation states Kyiv City District Administrative Courtroom (the KCDAC) has to be established rather of the DACK. Clearly, it is unnatural for an everyday district administrative courtroom to take into account this sort of a big scope of cases. Consequently, in order to protect against the emergence of a new monster like the DACK, it is vital to take away countrywide-stage instances from the jurisdiction of the freshly founded KCDAC and transfer them to the Higher Administrative Court, which has to be recognized in the long term as properly. The require to establish these types of a court docket was emphasised long ago by the specialists. The strategy of producing a High Administrative Court was also incorporated in the draft Legal Reform Approach for 2021-2023, offered by the President’s Workplace.

 

On the other hand, to set up the Substantial Administrative Court docket, it is crucial to type the operational Substantial Council of Justice (the HCJ) and Significant Qualification Fee of Judges (the HQCJ), two principal judicial governance bodies dependable for judges’ variety, disciplining, appointment and dismissal. Now in January, the Congress of Judges will be held, which will sort the HCJ, which in switch will be ready to variety the HQCJ to fill just about 3,000 vacancies in Ukrainian courts.

 

As before long as the Large Qualification Fee of Judges is founded, judges of the DACK, who however keep the standing of judges, will have to go through a qualification evaluation, which they have been preventing for 7 many years by influencing judicial bodies. This is not shocking, offered that 42 of 49 judges of the DACK have negative assessments of the Public Integrity Council, and there are serious issues about the integrity and experienced ethics of all 49 judges according to the civil society. What’s more, Pavlo Vovk and his associates have presently been convicted of making a criminal organisation – the pertinent scenario is by now currently being thought of by the Superior Anti-Corruption Courtroom.

 

The DACK judges will most likely obstacle the law on the liquidation of the DACK in the Constitutional Court docket (the CCU), which is by now thinking about a amount of critical reforms and laws. In specific, the CCU is examining the current judicial reform, the legislation on the Large Anti-Corruption Courtroom and will consider even additional laws linked to elections, reintegration of territories, and accession to the EU and NATO. Therefore, its reform is of elementary great importance. It arrived as no surprise that the European Commission incorporated the reform of the CCU as a single of the 7 situations for Ukraine to retain its EU prospect position.

 

Regretably, the Verkhovna Rada just lately adopted a draft legislation that can direct to the politicization of the Constitutional Court docket and, in accordance to industry experts, endangers the independence of the Court and Ukraine’s European integration. At the second, only the president’s veto can help save the scenario, to which Zelensky was known as by public companies.

 

The liquidation of the DACK is an unequivocally constructive improvement, but whether or not history will repeat itself is dependent primarily on judicial reform, which will finally establish no matter if Ukraine will be a democratic member of the EU or not. Following all, there is not a one thriving country in the environment devoid of the rule of legislation.