Roadmap and advocacy: working group holds first meeting

On January 2, the first organizational meeting of the Working Group on the implementation of the Roadmap on the rule of law in the area of advocacy reform took place. The event was devoted to agreeing on the framework for further work and exchanging the initial positions of the participants.

The meeting agenda included a review of the Roadmap and the purpose of establishing the Working Group, information on the status of implementation of tasks in the field of advocacy, as well as sections for proposals from members of parliament, representatives of advocacy and bar self-government bodies, and international partners.

The meeting was attended by the President of the UNBA Lidiya Izovitova, her deputy Valentin Gvozdiy, members of the central and regional bar self-government bodies, members of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on legal policy, namely: the chairman of the subcommittee on the organization and activities of advocacy Volodymyr Vatras and the chairman of the subcommittee on political reform and constitutional law Maksym Dyrdin, scholars, representatives of the Ukrainian civil society sector, and the international professional community.

V. Vatras, in particular, said that all members of the parliamentary subcommittee on the organization and activities of advocacy had expressed their desire to participate in the working group.

Among the participants of the meeting were the current president of the Council of Advocates and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) Roman Zavrsek and former CCBE president James McGill, the chairman of the CCBE Committee on International Legal Practice Carlo Forte and representatives of the CCBE Secretariat, the chairman of the International Committee of the French National Bar Council (CNB) Marie-Aimée Peyron, Director of the CNB Legal Department Géraldine Cavaillé, and their colleague from the CNB Frédéric Teper, President of the Lithuanian advocacy Mindaugas Kukaitis.

Due to the holiday break, some international experts were unable to attend the event, but confirmed their willingness to work within the working group: former CCBE presidents Maria Slasak and Marcella Prunbauer Glaser, chairman of the Czech delegation to the CCBE and member of the PECO Committee Antonín Mokrý, CNB president Julie Couturier, and president of the Czech Bar Association (ČAK) Monika Novotná.

The participation of representatives of the CCBE and European advocacy as external experts should ensure that the developments comply with standards and red lines.

The general framework of positions during the discussion boiled down to the fact that the implementation of the Roadmap should take place by bringing procedures and standards into line with European approaches, but without replacing self-government with state administration. The need to avoid manipulative interpretations of the Roadmap as a basis for external control over the profession was emphasized separately, as was the need to rely on the mandate of the professional community during consultations and the preparation of decisions.

Practical areas of work included issues of access to the profession, disciplinary procedures and their predictability, accountability and financial discipline while maintaining institutional independence, digital services and data security, as well as guarantees of professional activity in wartime. The position was also expressed that some of the tasks had already been implemented through decisions by the bar self-government bodies.

The majority of tasks in the field of advocacy should be implemented within the timeframes set out in the Roadmap, with a focus on the practical implementation of agreed decisions. Therefore, the group's further work should ensure the consistency of proposals, the quality of regulatory changes, and their applicability in practice.

We would like to remind you that the Roadmap on the rule of law was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers' Order No. 475-r of May 14, 2025. Among the tasks identified in the document is the development and adoption of a draft law on improving the legal regulation of the legal profession by the fourth quarter of 2026. The Ukrainian National Bar Association has been designated as the co-implementer of the measures. By decision of the BCU No. 125 of December 12, 2025, the Program for the implementation of the Roadmap in the part concerning the reform of the advocacy was approved, and a working group was created.