On August 31, 2023, a consultation meeting was held between the Chairman of the Commission Roman Ihnatov, and the Deputy Chairman of the Commission Ruslan Sydorovych with the Head of the Department for the Execution of Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) at the Directorate General for Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe Pavlo Pushkar, and the Manager of the Council of Europe Project “Support to the functioning of justice in the war and post-war context in Ukraine” Iryna Kushnir.
The discussion was focused on the issues of compliance with the requirements of a reasonable duration of court proceedings in the context of the implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in “Svitlana Naumenko v. Ukraine”, “Merit v. Ukraine” cases and supervision by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in areas of particular importance – pilot decisions, as well as those that raise systemic, structural or complex problems.
Roman Ihnatov emphasized that fulfillment of the Commission’s priorities will contribute to the creation of a professional judiciary based on the principles of integrity, which will improve access to justice. He noted that the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine is open to cooperation with international partners and the Council of Europe experts to improve its work and develop standards for strengthening democracy, the Rule of Law, and human rights protection in Ukraine.
Pavlo Pushkar assured that the Council of Europe is ready to support the activities of the Commission, in particular through the International Technical Assistance Project “Support to the functioning of justice in the war and post-war context in Ukraine”, which is implemented by the Co-operation Programs Department of the Human Rights Implementation Division, Justice Standards and Legal Cooperation of the Directorate General for Human Rights and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe. He noted that the main directions of the Project implementation are:
- support for the improvement of legislation and judicial practice in accordance with the Council of Europe standards;
- support for the activities of judicial self-government bodies;
- support for the development and implementation of a comprehensive system of measures to overcome the problems of prolonged non-enforcement of court decisions, excessive duration of court proceedings, and shortcomings that led to violations of the European Convention on Human Rights in the group of cases “Oleksandr Volkov v. Ukraine”.
The meeting was also attended by Commission members Ruslan Melnyk, Serhiy Chumak, and Roman Sabodash.
As a reminder, the Council of Europe, through its governing statutory body, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, evaluates the fulfillment by member states of the obligations set out in the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in which it found violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In particular, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe may evaluate the state of implementation of individual ECHR judgments on the basis of reports submitted by the respondent states on the measures taken of a general and individual nature, and determine whether these measures were sufficient to fully implement the judgments of the ECHR. By analogy, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe may assess plans for future state actions aimed at full and timely implementation of the ECHR judgments and recommend to the Ukrainian authorities to take measures based on the European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR case law, its practice, Council of Europe law, etc.
