On March 28, 2017, the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine published the personified results of practical tasks completed by the Supreme Court candidates. These results raise doubts as to the impartiality of the competition and ruin trust in the objective selection of the Supreme Court candidates.
The use of statistical methods leads to the conclusion that the scores of the Supreme Court candidates for the written tasks might well have been manipulated on the political grounds. This conclusion can be disproved only once the candidates’ works and the scores given by each member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges according to every assessment criterion are published. Until this information is published, the conduct of the HQCJ can well be considered as dishonest.
If these doubts are not dispelled, the public will distrust the judicial reform and the judiciary in general even more.
To implement Article 85 of the Law of Ukraine “On the judiciary and the status of judges” and to ensure the legitimacy of the competition, the High Qualification Commission of Judges shall guarantee that the selection process is transparent.
If the candidates’ works and the scores given by each member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges are not published, we call on the members of the Public Integrity Council to stop taking part in the process of selection of the Supreme Court candidates not to legitimize the – most probably – manipulated results of the competition by their participation.
Therefore, the Reanimation Package of Reforms demands that the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine should publish the content of the practical tasks, the written works of each candidate, and the scores given by each of the members of the Commission according to the established assessment criteria.