“To ensure the sustainability of rule of law consolidation efforts, Ukraine should continue legal education reform,” was the message of the European Commission’s Report on the possibility of starting negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union of November 8, 2023. A month later, we officially launched accession negotiations with the EU, but the reform of legal education remains a pressing issue.

High-quality legal education is fundamental to the development and maintenance of a well-functioning legal profession, which contributes to democracy and the rule of law, as well as to strengthening integrity, ethics and the fight against corruption. The need to reform legal education has been discussed in the civil society for a long time, but it has become especially relevant since the start of the EU accession negotiations. 

One of the key problems of the reform is the need for institutional separation of legal education and training of law enforcement officers. Higher education institutions run by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other law enforcement agencies, as well as numerous higher legal education institutions run by the Ministry of Education and Science, train lawyers and law enforcement professionals simultaneously. This overlapping of functions weakens the quality of legal education and training for law enforcement agencies and creates corruption risks. A clear institutional delineation between these two different types of training is important because they require different ways of thinking, knowledge and skills, as well as approaches to learning, discipline, subordination and career paths in a democratic society.

So how to make this distinction, what consequences it will have for the higher education system, and where to find resources for it were discussed in Kyiv on August 30 during the roundtable “Reform of Legal Education in Ukraine: Approaches to Distinguishing between Legal Education and Training of Law Enforcement Specialists”.

Members of the Ukrainian Parliament, representatives of the President’s Office, ministries, higher education institutions, NGOs, international technical assistance projects, and representatives of the legal profession and academic community reviewed the report of the same name prepared by experts of the Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition and DEJURE Foundation based on the results of a series of expert discussions.

We are sharing with you the report “Reform of Legal Education in Ukraine: Approaches to Delineation between Legal Education and Training of Law Enforcement Specialists” (in Ukrainian).

The Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition provided the report and recommendations based on the discussion to the leadership and members of the Working Group on Legal Education Reform under the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy. We hope that the analysis and recommendations will be useful in developing state decisions in the public interest that will bring Ukraine closer to EU membership.

The event was prepared and organized by the Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition in partnership with the DEJURE Foundation and the USAID Justice for All Activity. The event was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Ukraine Responsive and Accountable Politics Program (U-RAP), implemented by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI), and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The views expressed at this event are solely those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the United States Government.