A coalition of civil society organizations — the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, Transparency International Ukraine, ZMINA Human Rights Centre, Tomorrow’s Lawyer, and the Ukrainian Bar Association — presented the Shadow Report to Chapter 23 “Justice and Fundamental Rights” of the European Commission's 2023 Report on Ukraine to the representatives of the European Commission.

This is the first report submitted by Ukraine's civil society sector to the European Commission since the country became a candidate for EU membership. The Shadow Report highlights the perspective of Ukrainian civil society, legal professionals, and experts who are actively involved in the field of justice. It provides an analysis of the progress achieved in the areas of the rule of law, the fight against corruption, and the protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms, identifies weaknesses and gaps, and provides recommendations on what needs to be done from the Ukrainian side.

"This Shadow Report offers a more comprehensive and transparent vision of the reform process in Ukraine. It is an important tool for preparing for EU accession negotiations — both for the Ukrainian side and for the EU. The Shadow Report has been provided to the Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian delegation, which will participate in bilateral meetings on Chapter 23 next week," commented Oksana Tsymbrivska, Head of the EU "Pravo-Justice" Project, on the importance of the report.

Manfredas Limantas, Head of the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Sector of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, highly appreciated the level of preparation of the Shadow Report.

"I have never seen such a serious report prepared by civil society in any country I have worked in before. We will use this report when formulating our recommendations for the screening report, as well as when considering the draft roadmap for reforms in the area of the rule of law that Ukraine needs to prepare to move forward on its EU accession path. And, of course, these materials will be used to identify benchmarks for accession negotiations. Therefore, the report is very timely in terms of our work with Ukraine," said Mr. Manfredas.

In its part of the report, the Agency for Legislative Initiatives emphasized the need to adopt a judicial reform strategy. To date, Ukraine unfortunately lacks a single approved document. The reform is being carried out under pressure from the public and international partners. Only now, the Office of the President of Ukraine has developed and sent a draft Strategy for the Development of the Justice System and Constitutional Proceedings for 2024-2029 to the main judicial bodies and some representatives of the non-governmental sector for suggestions and comments. This draft Strategy needs significant refinement, and the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives is already preparing its proposals.

"We conducted a brief analysis of this document and identified problems. First and foremost, the document in some areas of reforming violates the independence of the judiciary. Secondly, it does not contain a list of current problems, but rather describes how and what needs to be reformed. But what is the purpose of such changes if it is not specified what specific problems they address? And third, many points of the Strategy are not actually a strategy," noted Karina Aslanyan, Head of the Rule of Law Sector of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, during the presentation of the report.

Manfredas Limantas, for his part, expressed hope that the recommendations of civil society would be considered by the Office of the President for improving the Strategy.

Yevhen Krapyvin, an expert on criminal justice for the Tomorrow’s Lawyer program and the Centre for Political and Legal Reforms, focused on problems and recommendations for their solution regarding the prosecution system in Ukraine. The speaker stressed the need for independence of the prosecution service and the Prosecutor General, particularly from political influence, and the development of institutions that should ensure this independence.

"The prosecution in Ukraine has significantly developed after the Revolution of Dignity — prosecutors have become more independent, particularly due to the functioning of prosecutorial self-government. At the same time, there remain issues of quality selection of personnel, especially for leadership positions, responses to threats to independence, depoliticization of the appointment/dismissal of the Prosecutor General, etc. All these things are found in the recommendations of the EU, the Council of Europe, GRECO, and other organizations. The Shadow Report should provide the European Commission with a broader understanding of the state of development of the prosecution as a justice institution, complementing the official delegation's report," noted the expert.

Daria Pysarenko, Executive Director of the Tomorrow’s Lawyer program, presented the main conclusions, problems, and recommendations for the section on advocacy reform. She specifically covered issues of the legal status of advocacy, advocacy self-governance problems, disciplinary responsibility — all aspects that characterize the current structure of the advocacy sphere.

"Advocacy is an important element of the judicial system as such, but at the moment it is not transparent, accountable, and subject to oversight by society and the legal community. Issues such as the election of representatives to the High Council of Justice, the need to re-elect advocacy self-governance bodies, and changes in election rules, monopolization of continuous professional development, non-transparent procedures for access to the profession, risks of disciplinary abuse — under current conditions, the independence of lawyers is more of a declaration than a reality. At the same time, advocacy is a component of the justice sector that will not be entirely successful without an institutionally developed, independent bar. Therefore, a detailed analysis of this area should become the necessary driver of changes," summarized Daria Pysarenko.

A comprehensive reform of the justice system is impossible without addressing problems with legal education in Ukraine. Every year, Ukrainian universities graduate thousands of lawyers, but the quality of this education does not meet European standards. The recommendations of civil society on necessary changes in education were voiced by Ivan Horodyskyy, UBA Vice President.

"The irrelevance of legal education in Ukraine is primarily due to a specific post-Soviet legacy that even in modern conditions does not abandon projections of the outdated Soviet vision of the law. Today we must promote a modern, human-oriented education — towards the goal of justice. Of course, we should not forget about optimizing the legal education system. That is why we propose reforming education funding in favor of grant offers. This will not only reduce the burden on state resources but also increase the motivation of talented students who are the foundation of the modern legal process," the speaker noted.

Kateryna Ryzhenko, Deputy Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine for legal affairs, presenting the section on combating corruption, emphasized the need to improve anti-corruption legislation and the urgent need to consider the shortcomings of the previous State Anti-Corruption Strategy and State Anti-Corruption Program in the process of developing new documents, as this process will begin very soon. She also mentioned the importance of fully restoring electronic declaration and political party reporting as part of her presentation.

"Fighting corruption is a comprehensive issue. The recommendations we have provided are very specific and practical, but at the same time, they comprehensively cover the areas related to preventing and combating corruption. We have been talking about some of the raised problems for a long time, but there are also those that have emerged precisely in the process of negotiations with the European Union," summarized Kateryna Ryzhenko.

Tetiana Pechonchyk, Head of the Board of the ZMINA Human Rights Centre, spoke about the main challenges for respecting a wide range of human rights in Ukraine that the country will have to deal with on its path to the EU.

"The peculiarity of the Ukrainian situation is that the country is undergoing European integration transformation during a full-scale war, and in connection with this, we have many problems that are unique to Ukraine and that other countries have not faced — how to ensure justice and punishment for war criminals amid the colossal scale of crimes committed, how to protect the rights of victims of Russian aggression, including residents of the occupied territories. We hope that human rights issues in the context of de-occupation and reintegration will also be in the focus of the EU," the expert emphasized.

Tetiana Pechonchyk also drew attention to negative trends in the field of human rights protection, particularly to the intention to restrict access to information and decisions of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions through Draft Law No. 7033-d, which, despite criticism from human rights defenders, was adopted as a basis by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The monitoring, analysis and preparation of the Shadow Report were carried out from February to August 2024. The full text of the report has already been published in Ukrainian and English.

This report was prepared with the financial assistance of the European Union within the framework of the EU Pravo-Justice Project. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the Ukrainian Bar Association and other civil society organisations and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

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