On September 19 and 20, Commission members Vitalii Gatseliuk and Ruslan Melnyk visited Lviv to take part in the X Lviv Criminal Justice Forum, organized by the OSCE Support Programme for Ukraine.
This year’s event was dedicated to the topic “Ukrainian Criminal Justice in Post/War Paradigm”. During the forum, the participants discussed urgent issues arising in the law-based society in the context of war and hostile aggression.
The discussion focused on the prospects of ensuring access to justice through the formation of military justice bodies in Ukraine; mobilization measures in the paradigm of human rights and the establishment of statehood with respect for human dignity; criminal justice and its gender aspects.
A separate discussion was devoted to topical issues of current judicial career procedures: competitions and qualification evaluation.
Thus, Vitalii Gatseliuk informed about the practice of assessing the criteria of integrity and professional ethics of judges and candidates for judicial positions in the procedures carried out by the Commission.
Ruslan Melnyk outlined the current situation with regard to preparations for the exams to be conducted as part of the competitions to the High Anti-Corruption Court and appellate courts, as well as temporary secondments of judges as a tool for balancing the workload in courts of different regions.
Overall, the X Lviv Criminal Justice Forum brought together a wide range of representatives of the judiciary and renowned legal professionals. The event was attended by Deputy Chairman of the High Council of Justice Dmytro Lukianov, Head of Lviv Criminal Justice Forum, Doctor of Law, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine Viacheslav Navrotsky, First Vice-Rector of Lviv State University of Internal Affairs, Candidate of Juridical Sciences, Professor Taras Sozansky, Senior Project Associate of the OSCE Support Programme for Ukraine Oleksandr Vodiannikov, Head of the OSCE Project “Promoting Access to Criminal Justice through Enhancing Law Enforcement Agencies’ Capacity to Investigate Serious Crime” Iryna Potapova, as well as other scholars and experts in the field of criminal law, and representatives of NGOs.
