Lidia Izovitova: Repressive justice, where protection plays a nominal role, cannot be restored

During 2020 the bar was involved in the most urgent needs of justice reform. In particular, the bar worked with the committees of the Verkhovna Rada, to which the UNBA sent analytical recommendations; provided joint activities with the State Judicial Administration (hereinafter – SJA) on the introduction of e-court; maintained the dialogue with judicial authorities on access to justice.

This was announced by the Head of UNBA, the Head of the Bar Council of Ukraine (hereinafter – the BCU) Lidia Izovitova during a meeting of the BCU on December 18, which was held in the online format.

The UNBA continues to promote the idea that Congress of advocates of Ukraine shall be integrated into the subsystem of the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System "Electronic Court". Also, according to the Memorandum of Cooperation with the SJA, it embodies other areas of joint activities.

“A Working Group on e-Justice Implementation in Ukraine was established at the UNBA under the management of the Deputy Head of the UNBA, the BCU Valentyn Hvozdiy. During work of the Working Group on e-Justice Implementation, it has established a dialogue on e-justice issues with the High Council of Justice, the SJA, and the State Enterprise "Information Judicial Systems". Meetings and consultations with government officials are held regularly to coordinate efforts in this direction. The Working Group also participated in the development of amendments to the procedural codes, which relates to the work of the "Electronic Court", - said Lidia Izovitova.

An important vector of the UNBA's activity in 2020 was participation in numerous online meetings dedicated to the work of justice in a pandemic.

"On these online platforms with the participation of the High Council of Justice, we defended our right - the right of attorneys to their own health and safety, which judges began to ignore by using the features of quarantine against attorneys. There are lots of cases where judges did not consider the inability of attorneys to come to court, including in another region, did not consider the attorney's illness for COVID as a valid reason for non-coming to court. Especially such tactic was used by judges of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court. We discussed this issue both in the course of oral discussions and in written appeals to the Council of Judges, Supreme Anti-Corruption Court and High Council of Justice,” the Head of the UNBA, the BCU emphasized.

During November-December 2020, the UNBA initiated and co-organized the national discussion "Access to Justice", where the representatives of the bar revealed the reasons for the failures of judicial reform.

"We pointed out how the attempts are made to repeat the involvement of international experts in the formation of judicial governing bodies. This directly restricts the right of professional communities, as the true representatives of society, to delegate their representatives to the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine and the High Council of Justice. The decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which pointed out the lack of constitutional grounds for the establishment of such expert commissions on foreigners at the constitutional justice bodies, speaks in favor of this,” said the Head of the UNBA, the BCU.

Lidia Izovitova added that the idea of involving international experts in the establishment of judicial self-government bodies in Ukraine is not new. Thus, the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court was formed on the recommendations of the Public Council of International Experts. The UNBA considers this experience unsuccessful, because only this year the BCU considered numerous complaints against the actions of judges of this court and adopted at least 5 decisions, which set out the legal assessment of this violation and suggested ways to stop the practice of pressure on defense.

"Instead, there is the opinion of some "public" that this court is a highly successful example of the participation of foreigners. This is a dangerous manipulation. We sent to the European project "Law Justice" all the materials - the decisions of the BCU, appeals to international institutions and to law enforcement agencies about the facts of violations of the rights of attorneys by judges of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court. Thus, with the facts and concrete documents, we are ready to convince anyone that this precedent should not be repeated. It is impossible to restore repressive justice, where protection plays a nominal role,” Lidia Izovitova said.