Supreme Court Plenum received information on the activities of the Supreme Court in 2024 and considered two constitutional petitions

The judicial system of Ukraine has demonstrated its effectiveness even in the difficult conditions of martial law. This is supported by statistical data showing the stability of case consideration in a challenging time for the country.

This was stated by Stanislav Kravchenko, President of the Supreme Court, during a meeting of the Supreme Court Plenum on 7 February 2025.

The SC President informed that in 2024, 5 million 300 thousand cases were pending in courts of all instances and jurisdictions, of which 4 million 400 thousand were considered. During the year, the courts of first instance received 3.8 million cases, and they reviewed approximately the same number of cases.

The Supreme Court received more than 90 thousand cases, which is 5% more than in 2023, and the number of cases reviewed reached 87 thousand, exceeding the figure for the previous reporting period by more than a thousand.

Over the past year, the Supreme Court has managed to formulate a significant number of opinions important for the development of the legal system and ensuring the unity of case law, which address both general legal issues and specific issues related to the war. This, according to Stanislav Kravchenko, demonstrates that the Supreme Court promptly responds to the current legal challenges caused by the war, and it is thanks to this that legal certainty and predictability are ensured.

At the same time, the President of the Supreme Court pointed out that a significant shortage of judicial personnel remains a major problem for the justice system in general and for the Supreme Court in particular. In view of this, to ensure the smooth operation of the Supreme Court, the competition for all vacant positions of judges of the Supreme Court should begin immediately after the competition to the courts of appeal.

In addition to filling the vacant judicial positions, another priority task and a powerful tool for enhancing the efficiency of the judiciary, according to Stanislav Kravchenko, is to optimise the court network. This will ensure specialisation in the courts, which will help ensure the unity of case law, improve the quality of justice and reduce the duration of proceedings.

The SC President also noted that the work of courts was considerably affected by significant security threats, and last year the High Council of Justice changed the territorial jurisdiction of 11 courts.

Stanislav Kravchenko paid special attention to the issue of digitalisation of the judicial system, noting that the dynamics of this process is currently unsatisfactory. The SC President stressed that the judiciary should ultimately form a clear vision of the next steps in the implementation of the UJICS and take the necessary measures to implement this task as soon as possible, as the efficiency of the judicial process largely depends on it.

In addition, in his speech, the President of the Supreme Court focused on the issue of trust in the judiciary, emphasising the need for independent organisations to conduct an annual survey, which will determine the level of trust in the court, primarily among persons who have participated in court proceedings.

This would allow for the dissemination of objective indicators of the level of trust in the courts, which is extremely important given that trust in the courts is one of the pillars of the rule of law. This idea is being discussed with representatives of the European Commission in the process of developing the Roadmap and has their support.

In conclusion, Stanislav Kravchenko highlighted the fairly significant progress in the process of European integration. The judiciary was successfully represented at the negotiations with the European Commission in Brussels in September 2024, and today, in many areas analysed in the process of European integration, there is a positive impact of the progressive practice of the Supreme Court, which demonstrates the European orientation of the approaches implemented in the consideration of court cases.

Vitalii Urkevych, the Secretary of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, presented the results of the activities of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court over the past year. According to him, last year, the SC Grand Chamber considered 522 procedural appeals in all jurisdictions, which is almost 8% more than in 2023, and delivered 270 court decisions on the merits.

In 2024, the cassation courts referred 163 cases to the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, which is 6% more than the year before. Taking into account the balances, in 2024 the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court had 220 cases under consideration in cassation.

Also, last year, the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court received 231 appellate complaints in administrative cases, which is 35% of all appeals received by the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in 2024. Last year, a total of 272 appellate complaints were pending, 179 of which were considered.

Regarding the consideration of appeals against decisions of the High Council of Justice made as a result of consideration of appeals against decisions of the HCJ Disciplinary Chamber, Vitalii Urkevych informed that last year the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court considered 39 such appeals. Of these, 23 complaints were considered (17 complaints were dismissed and six were upheld).

In addition, in 2024, the SC Grand Chamber considered applications for review of court decisions on exceptional circumstances. Thus, 41 applications were considered on the grounds that an international judicial institution whose jurisdiction is recognised by Ukraine had established a violation of international obligations by Ukraine, including 13 in administrative cases; 2 in commercial cases; 12 in civil cases; and 14 in criminal proceedings. Four applications (one in a commercial case, one in a criminal case, two in civil cases) were considered on the grounds of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine's finding of unconstitutionality (constitutionality) of a law, other legal act or their separate provisions applied (not applied) by the court in resolving the case.

Vitalii Urkevych also noted the cooperation of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court with the Scientific Advisory Council of the Supreme Court (the SAC), which continued in 2024. Last year, the judges of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court prepared 35 appeals to the SAC experts regarding the preparation of scientific opinions on the application of legal norms and received 135 scientific opinions.

‘The work of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in 2024 is characterised by positive dynamics and is effective. The priority areas of activity in 2025 are optimisation of processes related to preparation of cases for collegial consideration and ensuring high quality of court decisions,’ the Secretary of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court summed up.

During the session of the Plenum, Viktor Kapustynskyi, Chief of Staff of the Supreme Court, spoke about the work of the Supreme Court Staff and the implementation of the budget programme in 2024.

‘In today's challenging realities, the work of the Staff was focused primarily on the priorities of clear daily performance of statutory functions, in particular: ensuring energy, financial, technical, personnel, and documentary sustainability; simplifying any processes and procedures; and creating modern conditions for the Supreme Court judges to administer justice,’ the Chief of Staff said.

Over the past year, the Supreme Court has modernised its IT infrastructure on its own. In particular, according to Viktor Kapustynskyi, the employees of the Supreme Court Staff paid attention to the digitalisation of general (non-procedural) and personnel records management, as well as archival work. As a result, the share of electronic document flow among non-procedural documents has increased to 90%. Several Supreme Court IT products were also created, including the Supreme LAB resource, designed to facilitate the search for information on cases considered by chambers, joint chambers and the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court or pending before them, as well as on exemplary cases.

Traditionally, in 2024, the Supreme Court conducted a survey among visitors on the quality of organisational court services. The respondents positively assessed the convenience of staying in the Court. Thus, almost half (42%) consider such conditions to be excellent, while 44% rated them ‘good’. However, 9 % of respondents rated the conditions as satisfactory, which encourages the implementation of new ideas. For example, at the initiative of the Civil Cassation Court within the Supreme Court, a pilot project was launched - a room for children of visitors and children of court employees.

Regarding the financial support and implementation of the budget programme, the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Court said that for 2024, the budget allocations of the general and special funds for the Supreme Court were set at UAH 2 billion 388 million. Court fee revenues at the end of last year amounted to UAH 535 million. According to Viktor Kapustynskyi, due to the transition to real payments, this figure of court fee revenues was met for the first time in the history of the Supreme Court. Last year, the budgetary allocations of the Supreme Court were fully funded from the general and special budget funds for all planned performance indicators.

In addition, last year the Supreme Court presented the concept of cooperation with higher education law schools, signed and implemented memoranda of cooperation with leading law schools.

Viktor Kapustynskyi also mentioned the challenges that had to be overcome in 2024. For example, the development of electronic justice required solving the complex issue of proper interaction and functioning of the services and modules of the Electronic Court. Given the scale of this work, the SC's own resources are not enough, so communication in this area with the SJA of Ukraine is currently underway.

Also, according to the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Court, the refund of court fees ordered by the Supreme Court has become a problematic issue, as the Court has now taken over the relevant function previously performed by the State Treasury Service of Ukraine. This new functionality will require additional human resources and relevant changes to the staffing table.

Viktor Kapustynskyi summarised that over the past year the Supreme Court Staff managed to adapt to the difficult conditions of today, ensuring stability and efficiency in each area of activity.

In the course of the Plenum session, the working groups on the strategy of ensuring the unity of case law and on the basic principles of judicial management (effective management of the Supreme Court) reported on their activities.

The results of the functioning of the working group on the strategy for ensuring the unity of case law were presented by its coordinator, the Secretary of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court Vitalii Urkevych. Since its establishment (6 October 2023), the working group has held nine meetings.

In particular, in order to streamline the case law and further develop mechanisms to ensure its unity on the application of certain provisions of the procedural codes (including cassation filters), the working group initiated and organised a survey among judges and consultants of the Court. The results of the survey were proposed to be discussed at meetings of judges of the cassation courts of the Supreme Court.

In addition, the working group initiated weekly publication on the Supreme Court's communication channels of information on cases referred to the court chambers, joint chambers of cassation courts and the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court for consideration during the previous week. This facilitates the prompt informing of first instance and appellate judges and the legal community as a whole about such transferred cases.

The working group contributed to filling the Supreme Court's IT product Supreme LAB with data on cases referred to the judicial chambers, joint chambers of cassation courts and the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, indicating the detailed grounds for the referral of cases and the results of their consideration by the cassation court. In addition, to disseminate the Supreme Court's legal opinions and ensure the unity of case law, the working group initiated the audit and regular updating of thematic digests of the Supreme Court's case law.

The coordinator of the working group noted that at one of the group's recent meetings, they discussed the issue of summarising court practice in cases where decisions are not subject to cassation appeal. ‘The working group can become a platform for organising such work, which is of great importance and was emphasised in the framework of the screening of the compliance of Ukrainian legislation with the EU law dedicated to the negotiating chapter 23 “Judiciary and Fundamental Rights”,’ Vitalii Urkevych stressed and added that the working group, as an important mechanism for ensuring the unity of case law, plans to work no less actively this year.

The coordinator of the working group on the basic principles of judicial management (effective management of the Supreme Court), judge-rapporteur of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court Kostiantyn Pilkov, highlighted the positive experience of legislative activity. Together with the scientific institution and with the support of the public, the Law of Ukraine No. 3755-IX dated 23 May 2024 was developed and adopted, which simplified the appointment of a video conference in civil, commercial and administrative proceedings, which was a small but concrete measure to improve the efficiency of judicial proceedings.

Kostiantyn Pilkov noted the efforts of the working group on the audit of court proceedings and also presented the results of a survey of the Supreme Court judges on measures to improve the interaction between judges and the Court's Staff. According to the survey, which was attended by 29 judges, more than 93% of respondents expressed their support for the advisability of holding periodic meetings of heads or responsible employees of certain structural units of the Supreme Court's Staff with judges to discuss and take measures to improve the efficiency of the Court's work in the relevant areas. The priorities identified by the judges include meetings with the Department for Analytical and Legal Work (69.2%); the Department of Communications (61.5%); and the Division for International Cooperation (53.8%).

The coordinator of the working group also highlighted the group's participation in organising discussions with representatives of the High Council of Justice, Council of Judges of Ukraine, State Judicial Administration of Ukraine, the staff of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the High Anti-Corruption Court on ways to solve the problem of remuneration of judge assistants.

During the year, the working group prepared and sent to judges and employees of the Supreme Court Staff the Recommendations ‘Effective Electronic Correspondence in Court’ based on the best practices of effective electronic communication in government agencies and aimed at improving the culture and content of electronic communications.

In addition, the agenda of the Plenum meeting included consideration of two constitutional petitions to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.

The first of them concerned the constitutionality of the provisions of subpara. 16, para. 3, part 12, Article 26 of the Law of Ukraine No. 2232-XII of 25 March 1992 ‘On Military Duty and Military Service’ (in terms of the legal construction ‘sibling (full brother or sister)’).

The previous version of this provision, according to the judge of the District Administrative Court who appealed to the SC Plenum, deprived a serviceman of the right to be discharged from military service during martial law if his half-sibling was killed during direct participation in the anti-terrorist operation, implementation of measures and ensuring national security and defence, repulsion and deterrence of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as during the aggression against Ukraine during martial law.

Reporting on this issue, Zhanna Melnyk-Tomenko, Secretary of the Judicial Chamber for Electoral and Referendum Cases and Protection of Political Rights of the Administrative Cassation Court of the Supreme Court, noted that the Law of Ukraine dated 20 November 2024 No. 4063-IX ‘On Amendments to Article 26 of the Law of Ukraine "On Military Duty and Military Service" regarding the restoration of the right of servicemen to be discharged from military service during martial law due to the death or disappearance of their half-siblings’ amended clause 16, paragraph 3, part 12, Article 26 of Law No. 2232-XII, which after the word "full" was supplemented with the word "half". Therefore, the above provisions of Law No. 2232-XII became invalid due to the entry into force of Law No. 4063-IX.

In the current version of Law No. 2232-XII, the legislator eliminated the aforementioned discriminatory features. Therefore, the SC Plenum concluded that there were no reasonable grounds for filing a petition with the CCU regarding the compliance of these provisions with the Constitution of Ukraine.

Another issue concerned the constitutionality of para. 18 of the Final and Transitional Provisions section of the Civil Code of Ukraine on the release of the borrower from liability under Article 625 of this Code for the period of martial law in the form of the obligation to pay the amount of debt, taking into account the established inflation index for the entire period of delay.

The Supreme Court Plenum noted that under civil law and the established practice of the Supreme Court, the inflation index is not a part of the debt amount, but a compensation component, which is an additional payment to the principal amount of the debt. Therefore, in this clause, the legislator provided for an exemption from liability under Article 625 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, including from the recovery of inflationary losses for the period of martial law or a state of emergency in Ukraine and within thirty days after its termination or cancellation.

Following the report of Vitalii Zuiev, judge of the Commercial Cassation Court of the Supreme Court, the SC Plenum dismissed the appeal to the CCU regarding the constitutionality of para. 18 of the Final and Transitional Provisions of the Civil Code of Ukraine.