Several candidates to the Supreme Court on competition wrote decisions that they have previously decided (updated)

After the second stage of the competition to the Supreme Court the Public Integrity Council (PIC) discovered that not all candidates had equal conditions.

As reported in the statement of Public Integrity Council, the tasks for the contest were drawn from real life almost unchanged. Some candidates for the position of judges were directly involved in solving the cases, which were the basis of the tasks.

“Several competitors had an unfair advantage during the practical task. While all participants had only 5 hours to solve a model problem – writing the judgment, some of them had months to prepare the answer”, – stated the Public Integrity Council.

As reported, several contestants have considered corresponding cases as judges of courts of various instances last year. Even then, they had worked through the whole array of legal information and had enough time to consider the case and to discuss with colleagues.

As reported by “Nashi Groshi” (Our Money), Yaroslav Romanyuk, the Chairman of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, Valentyna Simonenko, judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine and the Head of the Council of Judges of Ukraine, Ludmila Okhrimchuk, a judge of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, received their own cases on the test. They performed practical task based on their own decisions in civil cases. Currently, the case based on which judges made decisions is unavailable in the court registry.

“This situation does not indicate that contest in general is dishonest, but undermines the credibility of competition regarding these candidates”, – said in a statement of the Public Integrity Council.

It also noted that none of these candidates have publicly mentioned that the background of the case is well known for them.

High Qualification Commission of Judges plans to discuss how to overcome this inequality on February 23.

As a reminder, after the first stage – tests – one hundred of candidates for the post of the judges in the Supreme Court have dropped out.

On February 21, candidates completed a practical task. They were supposed to model the lawsuit and deliver a verdict.

Subsequently, their moral and psychological qualities will be tested. After that, the Public Integrity Council will present its conclusions of non-compliance of some candidates. Finally, to mid-March candidates will participate in the interviews.

New Supreme Court must start functioning in April.

As a reminder, earlier CHESNO movement named infamous candidates for the position of judges in the Supreme Court. The candidates are from the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Court of Ukraine, as well as from the High Specialized Court.

In December 2016, the CHESNO movement reported that only 29% of the candidates for the Supreme Court are not related to judicial system.

Earlier, Andriy Kozlov, a member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, suggested that publicity will lose the fight for conscientious judiciary. Since the people living near the judges and who can see how they live will not inform the Public Integrity Council and the High Qualification Commission of Judges about the facts of negligence of candidates.

As a reminder, the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) has not released dossiers of candidates to the Supreme Court.