On November 22, 2012, the Council of Judges of Ukraine, Centre for Judicial Studies and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) FAIR Justice Project conducted a roundtable “Presentation and Discussion of the Results of the Monitoring of Accessible, Independent and Fair Justice in Ukraine” during which the results of expert evaluation of the status of judicial independence in Ukraine in 2012 and findings of surveys of citizens – court visitors were presented.
Yaroslav Romaniuk, Chairman of the Council of Judges of Ukraine, First Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, Franz Schneider, Deputy Head of Mission/Adviser to the Embassy of Switzerland to Ukraine, David Vaughn, Chief of Party of the USAID FAIR Justice Project, Nataliya Vereshinska, Director of the Centre for Judicial Studies, Chief of Party of the Swiss Project “Support of Judicial Reform”, Judge Nadia Stefaniv, Chief Judge of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Court of Appeals, members of the Council of Judges of Ukraine and specialized councils of judges, leadership of the Supreme Court of Ukraine and high courts of Ukraine, courts of appeals of different oblasts of Ukraine, representatives of the High Council of Justice, High Qualifications Commission of Judges of Ukraine, State Judicial Administration of Ukraine, Members of Parliament of Ukraine, representatives of the Administration of the President of Ukraine, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, scholars and representatives of civil society and international organizations participated in the roundtable.
Oleksandr Serdyuk, Director of the Ananlytical Center of the Institute – member of the FAIR Justice Project participated in the roundtable.
In the framework of Ukrainian-Swiss Project “Support of Judicial Reform”, the Council of Judges of Ukraine jointly with the Centre for Judicial Studies annually conduct a monitoring of judicial independence in Ukraine to analyze the status of independence, impartiality and accessibility of justice in Ukraine. This year, the monitoring included content-analysis of current legislation (Law of Ukraine on the Judiciary and Status of Judges and procedure codes) in terms of its compliance with international standards of judicial independence and expert surveys of judges, advocates, prosecutors, scholars, representatives of legislative and executive power and civil society organizations to learn their evaluation of the status of independence of courts and judges.
USAID FAIR Justice Project conducted a survey on public satisfaction with court performance based on the methodology of Citizen Report Cards (CRC) which allows determining court performance quality through the indicators of litigants’ subjective evaluation of court performance. This methodology proved to be efficient and useful during the first round of surveys in Ukrainian courts conducted in 2008-2009 by civil society organizations under the support of the USAID UROL Project (the predecessor of the USAID FAIR Justice Project). CRC methodology had been improved during implementation of the second (2009-2010) and third (2010-2011) rounds. From June through July 2012, the fourth round of survey covering 34 pilot courts in 13 regions of Ukraine had taken place. In total, 4,222 court visitors who evaluated court performance by specific indicators were interviewed during the survey. The survey was conducted by 8 civil society organizations – partners of the USAID FAIR Justice Project. Thus, CRC methodology has become one of the forms of public monitoring of court performance.
Based on the survey results and discussions with court staff and judges of pilot courts, civil society organizations prepared analytical reports which they will present to the representatives of courts and territorial offices of the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine during regional round tables in November, December 2012 and January 2013. Based on these reports courts will have a possibility to develop plans to implement the recommendations proposed in the survey results to further improve their performance.
based on USAID FAIR Justice Project official web-site.