On October 23, 2015, the Venice Commission
provided a positive conclusion on the draft constitutional amendments on
justice approved by the Constitutional Commission of Ukraine on September 4,
2015. It was stated that “the last version of amendments to the Constitution is
very positive and well-prepared, and deserves certain support”.
Commenting on the final conclusion of the Venice
Commission, Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine and
Secretary of the Constitutional Commission Oleksiy Filatov noted: “Having
supported all key proposals of the Constitutional Commission, the Venice
Commission has confirmed compliance of the draft amendments with the European
standards. The final conclusion is a significant contribution to the further
development of judicial reform based on the principle of the rule of law, not
on situational political or populist arguments. We are grateful to the Venice
Commission experts for their high estimation and are hopeful that the revised
draft constitutional amendments will be approved at the plenary session of the
Constitutional Commission and submitted by the President for consideration by
the Parliament”.
The Venice Commission praised the abolition of
trial period for judges, exception of “breach of oath” from the list of grounds
to dismiss judges, introduction of competition procedures in the appointment of
judges, formation of the Supreme Council of Justice so that the majority of its
members are judges elected by judges, holding of the reform of public
prosecution and guarantees of its independence (primarily through deprivation of
the Verkhovna Rada’s authority to express distrust in the Prosecutor General),
depriving the prosecution of an authority to exercise general supervision,
introduction of the institute of constitutional complaint etc.
The Venice Commission welcomes the fact that
following its recommendations, the drafters have removed the authority of the
Parliament to appoint judges and the authority of the President to dismiss
judges and conveyed them to the Supreme Council of Justice. At the same time,
the Venice Commission recommends to clearly stipulate that the Supreme Council
of Justice has the authority to transfer and promote judges, though the
President may have a role in this process in the transition period for the
reasons of national security.
The Venice Commission also notes that “only
rough disciplinary offenses can lead to the dismissal of the Constitutional
Court judges”.
The Venice Commission emphasizes that the
dismissal of all judges, except for extraordinary cases such as changing the
constitutional system does not meet the European standards and the principle of
the rule of law. At the same time, it doesn’t exclude the renewal of the
judicial corps through the reorganization of certain courts and the evaluation
of judges’ compliance with criteria of professionalism, ethics and integrity,
which coincides with the position of the Constitutional Commission.
The Venice Commission praised constructive
cooperation with the Constitutional Commission and noted that “after numerous
attempts and many years of reforming the provisions of the Constitution of
Ukraine on justice, it is high time to carry out long overdue reform and move
towards an independent judiciary. The Venice Commission considers such
constitutional amendments an important step towards achieving this goal”.
No comments:
Post a Comment