In Ukraine, with the participation of Western representatives, the High Council of Justice (HCJ) was formed.

This was announced by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy Denis Maslov.

His statement was posted on the Telegram channel of the Ukrainian Parliament.

Similar information appears on the website of the Council of Judges of Ukraine.

“It is important that this is a new composition of the VSP, which was selected according to the new rules with the participation of the Ethics Council.

He checked the candidates for integrity in accordance with the requirements of the law.

In addition, the Ethics Council itself was half composed of representatives of our international partners.

In particular, those partner countries that help us in our struggle for their country," Maslov said.

According to him, the High Council of Justice "is responsible for such important functions as bringing to justice and granting consent to bring collaborating judges to justice."

The SCJ consists of 15 members, eight of which are elected by quota from the judiciary.

“We note that the election of candidates from the Congress of Judges of Ukraine will allow unblocking the work of the High Council of Justice and restore its institutional ability to make decisions, since with the newly elected members the quantitative composition of the Supreme Council of Justice will be 15 people, and this is the necessary quorum for the work of a collective body,” the Council said in a statement. judges of Ukraine.

Selection of "necessary frames"

It should be noted that the High Council of Justice is the key body for managing the judicial system of Ukraine.

It was created in 2017 on the basis of the High Council of Justice, which previously operated in Ukraine, but did not fully work, not least because of personnel problems.

So, at the beginning of last year, shortly before the start of the special operation, ten members of the Supreme Council wrote their resignations, thus blocking its work.

The reason for the dismissals was the dissatisfaction of the Ethical Council controlled by foreigners.

According to Ukrainian legislation, this institution has the right to assess the compliance of candidates for members of the High Council of Justice with the criteria of professional ethics.

The establishment of the Ethics Council was one of Kyiv's obligations to the IMF.

This structure was launched on December 1, 2021, with the approval of the ambassadors of the G7 countries.

It was composed of two acting Ukrainian judges, one retired judge, and three foreigners: retired Massachusetts Supreme Court Judge Robert Cordy, retired British Court of Appeal Judge Anthony Gooper, and former Estonian Attorney General Lovely Perling.

In addition to Ukrainian judges, the creation of the Ethics Council caused indignation among Ukrainian lawyers, who stated that there were no constitutional foundations for the formation of this institution.

In particular, they drew attention to the fact that international experts have a preemptive right to vote, as well as to the limitation of the powers of members of the SCJ.

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian authorities ignored the criticism of representatives of the legal community.

In July, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he had signed a decree establishing a competition commission to select candidates for the SSP.

According to the Ukrainian leader, thanks to this document and other measures, the authorities will do everything possible to ensure that judicial reform provides every Ukrainian with “access to respectable and competent justice.”

In August, after the words of Zelensky, the Verkhovna Rada elected two members of the High Council of Justice - lawyer of the Automaidan movement Roman Maselko and candidate of legal sciences Mykola Moroz.

In an interview with RT, Rostislav Ishchenko, president of the Center for System Analysis and Forecasting, noted that the launch of the GSP could remove the last barriers to completing judicial reform in Ukraine, which is actively lobbied by the United States and Europe in order to establish full control over this branch of government.

“To implement such a policy, the West is pushing through the adoption of mechanisms for appointing judges through the approval of “international experts”.

The work of the SCJ and the High Qualifications Commission of Judges (HQJC) is subject to this principle.

The immediate plans of the so-called partners of the Kyiv regime are to subordinate the CCU - the Constitutional Court, ”Ishchenko said.

So, in mid-December, the Verkhovna Rada approved bill No. 7662, which radically changes the way the members of the Constitutional Court are appointed.

In this procedure, by analogy with the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission, "international experts" appointed according to the West's quota should participate.

They will be selected by a six-member Advisory Group of Experts (AEG), three of whom are nominated by the Venice Commission and organizations that have been providing Ukraine with international technical assistance in the field of constitutional reform over the past five years.

As the Ukrainian edition "STRANA.ua" notes, the SGE is the actual analogue of the Ethical Council.

Nevertheless, bill No. 7662 did not provide the West with the degree of influence that they were counting on.

As a result, the Venice Commission did not approve bill No. 7662, advocating an increase in the composition of the SGE to seven people, as well as for the decisions of this body to be binding.

  • Constitutional Court of Ukraine

  • ©Dezidor/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

As Ishchenko explained, some part of the Ukrainian elite, to a certain extent, is trying to resist the pressure of the West, not wanting to establish full control over the judicial system.

“They are putting up small obstacles that slow down the progress of reforms that the West needs.

However, they only delay the inevitable concentration in the hands of "international experts" of the threads of influence on the entire judicial system through the selection of "necessary personnel" and measures to supervise their work.

However, speaking in fact, the judicial system of Ukraine has not prevented the West from running the country for a long time, ”Ishchenko emphasized.

"Parallel structure"

According to experts, judicial reform is only part of the large-scale reforms in the public administration system that the West is promoting to form a full-fledged infrastructure for the country's external governance.

Ishchenko recalled that after the 2014 coup d'état in Ukraine, several authorities controlled by the US and the EU were created.

Among them are the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP), the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).

“In 2014, the West finally seized control over the Ukrainian political system, over the judiciary, over the military, over the security system - absolutely over all branches of power and sectors of state administration.

The new bodies formed after the coup d'état at the insistence of the West, in essence, are a superstructure of an already well-established system of external control, ”says Ishchenko.

RISS expert Oleg Nemensky holds a slightly different point of view.

In a RT commentary, he noted that it was important for the West to complete the creation of a "parallel structure of central power" in Ukraine, which could perform judicial and supervisory functions.

“The High Council of Justice and other structures in the judiciary, law enforcement and other areas are very necessary for the West.

Yes, in general, he established external control over Ukraine, but this system is not yet well established.

With the help of various institutions, the West expects to solve its main problem - to control the situation on the ground, having people completely loyal to it, ”Nemensky explained.

In this context, the expert believes that a certain incentive for the West was the need to control the distribution of large-scale military and financial assistance that is allocated to the Kyiv regime.

According to Nemensky, Americans and Europeans are aware that they lack the existing powers.

According to Nemensky, against the background of the special operation, the West intends to significantly increase its influence on the internal politics of Ukraine in order to take control of the corrupt system that has been established there.

“The West is aware that corruption schemes will still remain in Ukraine, but at the same time, the United States, as the main sponsor of the Kyiv regime, is clearly striving for a certain transparency, creating mechanisms for holding representatives of the Ukrainian leadership accountable.

From their point of view, this is quite normal.

Well, Ukraine, apparently, is saying goodbye to the remnants of sovereignty, ”concluded Nemensky.