BCU, Council of Judges and Council of Prosecutors have agreed to cooperate
On October 1st, 2018 the Head of Bar Council of Ukraine Lidia Izovitova, the Head of Council of the Judges Oleh Tkachuk and the Head of Council of the Prosecutors signed the Resolution “On Professional Ethics of Justice”.
The document is drawn up with the purpose of implementation of the high standards of justice, professional training and enhancing professional ethics within judicial process.
“Level of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and ethical and professional conduct of a judge, prosecutor, advocate or another party to judicial process is one of the key conditions for strengthening public trust and respect for justice. The conduct of parties to proceedings are regulated by the Rules of conduct for the Judges, Rules of conduct for the Prosecutors, Rules of Conduct for the Advocates adopted by the supreme bodies of relevant professional self-government. However, these standards are often not adhered which negatively influences the quality of justice and leads to violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” - said in the Resolution.
The Resolution provides for the formation of a Coordination Committee on Justice composed of 3 persons representing each supreme body of self-government of judges, advocates and prosecutors.
The Parties have recognized the desirability of formation of unified standards of professional ethics in the sphere of justice. With that regard, 5 representatives of each supreme body of self-government above-mentioned will be invited to a work group for development of Rules of professional ethics and identification of common principles of justice.
The group will have presented the Concept of professional ethics of justice by November 1st.
The Resolutions provides for the introduction of recurrent joint training for judges, prosecutors and advocates at the National School for Judges of Ukraine, National Academy for Prosecutors of Ukraine and UNBA Higher School for Advocacy covering the topics of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with provisions of Convention and practice of ECHR, professional ethics and practice of implementation of the rules of professional ethics, responsibility and establishment of authority of judicial power, as well as other topics of common interest.
The Parties to the Resolution shall ensure prompt response to the appeals from the Council of the Judges of Ukraine, Bar Council of Ukraine and Council of the Prosecutors of Ukraine on the facts of violation of the standards of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms and professional ethics of justice.
Along with the questions of ethics and professional trainings, there is a section of the Resolution regarding the violation of the independence of judiciary. Namely, the acts of influence, pressure, interference by any means with the course of justice proceeded by the courts and judges, namely, influence on judges made by law enforcement agencies by the means of registration of criminal proceedings and the further prolonged non-conduct of pre-trial proceedings, including unlawful disciplinary and criminal prosecution, inter alia, for knowingly illegal decisions, are to be deemed as actions leading to violation of the guarantee to independence of judicial power, questioning the principle of rule of law in Ukraine and undermining the basis for justice in the State governed by rule of law.
However, the above-mentioned section of the Resolution does not deprive by any means the advocates of the protection provided for in Article 10 of the Convention according to the relevant practice of ECHR. To a certain extent, these provisions belong to section 7 of the Resolution providing for that acts of belittling of judicial power defamation of the judges by the people’s deputies, officials of public authorities, groundless accusations of the judges with unlawful activity (without any specification provided), are unacceptable and violate the Constitution of Ukraine, undermine the trust to judicial power and state to the Government as a whole.
To recap, on September 21, 2018 the Head of UNBA Lidia Izovitova participated in a joint meeting of the Council of the Judges of Ukraine, Council of the Prosecutors of Ukraine, UNBA, ECHR Commissioner for Human Rights.
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