UNDP in Ukraine

Since 1991, the judicial system in Ukraine has been under reform. Yet on the 18th year of Ukraine's independence the creation of viable and effective justice system remains one of the key tasks for Ukrainian authorities.

At the same time, as many participants in the national conference "The need and opportunities to accelerate judicial reform in Ukraine" said, enhancing the public accessibility to justice has been recognised as an important tool in guaranteeing favourable conditions for finding just and fair solutions to conflicts in courts.

The today's conference was organised within a UNDP-led project "Marketing Democracy", which was financed by UNDP and implemented by a public education NGO Center for Ukraine Reform Education.

Society forms courts and creates conditions for the work of judges - arranging work places, paying salaries, providing accommodations, and expects that the judges will act unbiased toward the parties and their decisions will not be questioned. That is, society demands an independent and fair court.

The project fosters a national public dialogue about issues of judicial reform, with the intended impact to create an educated, strident public demand that stimulates government action and accountability for undertaking key democratic reforms.

The Project has been implemented by a specialised public education NGO "Center for Ukrainian Reform Education" (CURE) in partnership with International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS), as their bid was the winning one in an open Project implementation tender earlier this year.

The project developed and implemented a public outreach campaign to facilitate public dialogue on judicial reform issues through varied media products.

For instance, the project initiated and sustained a public dialogue through national TV, radio, newspapers and Internet.

Various media products, including 12 talk-shows on ERA FM and Ukrainian National Radio, were produced and broadcast, presenting and discussing progress on, and prospects for, judicial reform in Ukraine.

In addition, the project developed and distributed three "Nash Chas" [Our Times] news bulletins with articles and information related to the theme of judicial reform available for free reprints.

Primary focus was given to radio and regional print media, as these forms of media have greater potential to reach a large audience.

Consequently, to develop national capacities to sustain an accurate, educated public debate on judicial reform, the project facilitated 5 one-day regional seminars to train journalists and editors. The seminars attracted around 150 journalists, who later produced over 70 articles and news programmes.

Moreover, there were organised five regional discussions (round table meetings) with representatives from NGOs, Government officials (i.e. Ministry of Justice) and other stakeholders, during which the project presented major analysis findings and advocacy messages.

During the today's conference, its participants watched one of the two documentaries entitled "All rise, let the reform proceed!", which was produced within the project. The film tells about the urgency for judicial reform in Ukraine.

The second film has been currently in production. It builds on the matters highlighted in the first film, but in addition offers a comprehensive look at the successes of court reform in the neighbouring Slovakia.

Over the project's implementation, its experts and beneficiaries voiced their concerns about the faults and problems in the current system.

For instance, as many experts say, the current court system structure does not provide free access to justice, while the court process is too complicated.

Besides, the justice system has been unbalanced and does not meet the European standards, failing to provide independent and fair court.

From the former USSR Ukraine inherited a rather clumsy court system. The court system in Ukraine is comprised of almost 800 courts and roughly 7,000 judges, who process around 8 million cases per year, while 95% of them are handled by local courts.

Moreover, personal, negative experience in a judicial process plays a part for one side always loses and is left feeling dissatisfied. This is how negative attitudes toward judges are formed.

As a result, the level of trust toward the judicial branch is equal to the level of trust toward political institutes, which in principle is unacceptable: 60% of citizens do not trust the court system of Ukraine.

Having a viable and effective justice system should be one of the country's top democratic governance development priorities. This will require a number of complex measures to promote accountability and fairness among the judges and within the courts.

During the conference its participants spoke in favour of strong political will and political stability needed for conducting further reforms.

The conference "The need and opportunities to accelerate judicial reform in Ukraine" finished a series of public outreach events which were organised within the "Marketing Democracy" project.

It is expected that following the project's outcomes, the project fosters a national public dialogue about issues of judicial reform, with the intended impact to create an educated, strident public demand that stimulates Government action and accountability for undertaking key democratic reforms.

For more information, please, contact Iryna Movchan, CURE's president, at tel.: (+38044) 490-69-88 or www.intellect.org.ua