Guarantees for the practice of law: a subgroup is developing proposals to strengthen protections

On April 29, a meeting of the subgroup on «Guarantees of legal practice and protection of advocates» was held as part of the activities of the Working Group on the implementation of the Roadmap on the Rule of Law.

Petro Boiko, chairman of the Kyiv Regional Bar Association, presented to the subgroup a practical perspective on the issue of guarantees for the practice of law, based on his experience of directly responding to situations involving interference in advocates’ work during court proceedings. Petro Boiko outlined key areas that, in his opinion, require strengthened regulatory and institutional protection, and announced his readiness to prepare written proposals with specific solutions and distribute them to subgroup members for further discussion. This package of recommendations will form the substantive basis of the document that the subgroup will submit to the Coordination Bureau.

The Vice President of the UNBA, BCU Valentin Gvozdiy, supported the proposed approach and shared the methodological experience of other subgroups within the Working Group: collecting practical issues and proposals from participants, summarizing them in the form of a working document, and submitting the findings to the Coordination Bureau for further processing. Separately, he emphasized the importance of gathering factual evidence—specifically, by systematizing materials on violations of advocates’ rights and guarantees of legal practice, which will strengthen the evidentiary basis for future proposals.

The meeting participants agreed that the collected materials — primarily Petro Boiko’s work — will be systematized into a consolidated document containing proposals to strengthen the protection of lawyers’ rights and guarantees of legal practice and, once finalized, submitted to the Coordination Bureau.