Role of the Supreme Court in the Process of Execution of the ECHR Judgments Was Discussed in Strasbourg

During visit on 20-22 February 2019, judges of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court met with representatives of the CoE institutions involved into the support to the execution of the ECHR judgments by Ukraine.

The delegation consisted of the Secretary of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court Vsevolod Kniaziev, judge of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court and the Chairman of the Council of Judges of Ukraine Oleh Tkachuk, judges of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court Svitlana Bakulina, Volodymyr Brytanchuk, Oleksandr Zolotnikov, Leonid Loboiko, Larysa Rohach and Olena Sytnik.

Hanne Juncker, the Head of the Department of Justice and Legal Cooperation of the Council of Europe, underlined that the European community was proud of its involvement into the establishment of the Supreme Court in Ukraine. She expressed hope that an overwhelming number of judicial cases would be solved and executed at the national level, so that people got the protection of their rights and interests, and they would not need to apply to the ECHR.

Vsevolod Kniaziev thanked for the CoE efforts in the establishment of European democratic values in Ukraine, and, particularly, for support in justice sphere.

While meeting with Clare Ovey, the Deputy Head of the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the ECHR, and Pavlo Pushkar, the Head of Division of this very Department, the Secretary of the SC Grand Chamber put emphasis on the significance of the ECHR case law for the development of law, informed about the procedure of cases review in the Supreme Court after their consideration by the ECHR and drew attention to the necessity to observe the ECHR case law for ensuring human rights. Vsevolod Kniaziev also described the situation with the excessive length of judicial proceedings in Ukraine and remarked that the Supreme Court paid attention to this issue, particularly, a working group for its solution had been formed.

Judges of the SC Grand Chamber and the experts discussed the role of the Supreme Court in forming stable case law in Ukraine. The participants also provided their opinions as for the issues appearing in the practice of the Supreme Court: solution of jurisdictional disputes, renewal of judges dismissed by the High Council of Justice on the grounds of the ECHR judgments. The parties expressed their confidence that under results of the discussion it would be possible to find approaches to the solution of problem issues pursuant to European practices.

The attention was also paid to statistics of the execution of judgments, since there are still 909 judgments as for Ukraine under the supervision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe; 700 of them are under enhanced monitoring. However, the experts noted that it was impossible to demonstrate positive trend regarding the execution of the Court judgments. While talking about the matter of non-execution of judgments, Olena Sytnik outlined the issue of judicial control over the execution of judgments and the issue of the execution of judgments, where the debtor is represented by the state. At the end of the meeting, Oleh Tkachuk noted that by joint efforts it would be possible to solve those issues, and to turn them into joint success.

The intensive schedule of meetings was continued by the conversation with representatives of the Permanent Representation of Ukraine to the Council of Europe. Ukrainian delegation informed about the progress of reforms. Foreign partners outlined the plans as for further support to Ukraine and recalled the importance of forming the image of our country in the international arena. The Director and Secretary of the Venice Commission Thomas Markert informed the judges about the activity of the Commission, including with regard to Ukraine.

While meeting with the Co-Secretary of the Consultative Council of European Judges (CCJE) and the Consultative Council of European Prosecutors (CCPE) of the Council of Europe Artashes Melikyan the main topic for the discussion was represented by the CCJE Opinion No. 20 of 10 November 2017 on the role of courts with respect to the uniform application of the law and the CCJE Opinion No. 21 of 9 November 2018 on preventing corruption among judges, the importance of these opinions and their application on practice.

The delegation participants talked about the indicators for assessing the effectiveness and quality of judicial systems and their improvement with Paul Meyer, representative of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) and Project Coordinator. He explained in detail the principles of work and the organizational structure of the Commission.

Judges of the SC Grand Chamber met with representatives of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) and expressed their thanks for recommendations and assessments aimed at overcoming corruption. The participants of meeting focused on the assessment of judges pursuant to anti-corruption criteria, integrity of judges and the importance of increased confidence to courts, disciplinary liability of judges and prosecutors due to invalid declared data.

According to Vsevolod Kniaziev, such cooperation will assist Ukraine to avoid the situation, when corruption prevents its European integration and development. Our state has already made certain steps towards this goal, particularly, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention, the National Anti-Corruption Agency of Ukraine, the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine have been established.

During the visit the delegation met with the ECHR judge from Azerbaijan Lətif Hüseynov, lawyers of the ECHR Registry and representatives of the European Committee on Legal Cooperation.

Within the Council of Europe project “Supporting Ukraine in Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights” the Directorate General on Human Rights and the Rule of Law invited judges of the SC Grand Chamber to visit the Headquarters of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg so that they could directly familiarize with the functioning of the CoE bodies. This is a step towards the further dialogue, particularly, in the context of the development of the case law of the Supreme Court pursuant to the CoE standards.

These meetings became the platform for the exchange of opinions as for certain issues within the judicial reform and the execution of the ECHR judgments, particularly, the non-execution of judgments of national courts, duration of court proceedings and the role of the Supreme Court in the process of solving these issues and support of the Council of Europe.