Handling of international crimes and application of Council of Europe standards: SC Criminal Cassation Court representatives pay a study visit to Strasbourg

Oleksandr Marchuk, the President of the Criminal Cassation Court within the Supreme Court, and Supreme Court judges in the CrimCC Alla Makarovets, Viacheslav Nastavnyi and Serhii Yeremeichuk took part in a study visit to Strasbourg (France) for Ukrainian judges who conduct proceedings in international crimes.

The visit, organised by the Council of Europe's project "Fostering Human Rights in the Criminal Justice System in Ukraine - Phase II" in cooperation with the European Union Advisory Mission for Civilian Security Sector Reform in Ukraine, helped to harmonise national case law on international crimes with European legal standards. As part of the trip, Ukrainian judges attended institutional meetings and workshops held by representatives of the European Court of Human Rights, the ECHR's Department for the Execution of Judgments and the European Commission on the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ).

Thus, during two training days, representatives of the SC CrimCC and other Ukrainian judges, together with ECHR judges Mykola Gnatovskyy, Anna Adamska-Gallant and Péter Paczolay, discussed ways to strengthen the judiciary's understanding of the standards of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, especially in the context of the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. Representatives of the ECHR Registry, Pamela McCormick, Juris Rudevskis and Mykola Sorochynskyi, spoke about the standards of fair trial in cases of public interest, general principles in the practice of war crimes trials, the ECHR's view on the procedure of trial in absentia, and the standards of fair trial in cases related to national security. Pavlo Pushkar, Head of the Division of the ECHR's Department for the Execution of Judgments, highlighted the problematic aspects of the enforcement of judgments.

In addition, the participants of the visit considered such topics as legal regulation and the future of mechanisms for prosecuting the crime of aggression and adherence to the rule of law in the context of armed conflict and in the post-war period.