Reforming Justice in Times of War: Interview with Olena Fonova to the Editorial Board of the Expertise France Annual Report

Interview with Olena Fonova, judge of the Economic Court of Luhansk Region, coordinator of the Donbas Regional Justice Reform Council, co-founder and vice-president of the NGO ‘Interregional Expert Centre ‘PRO Justice’, to the editorial board of the Expertise France Annual Report.

Improving governance is key to ensuring stability and development in society. Justice and gender equality, which are based on structural rules and decisions, are important for institutions to function properly. Expertise France supports these areas in Ukraine, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America through projects aimed at strengthening the rule of law and local institutions.

Launched in 2017 with the support of the European Union, EU Project Pravo-Justice has been supporting judicial reform in Ukraine, which is key to European integration. The Russian invasion in 2022 resulted in a reorientation of the second phase of the project towards providing humanitarian assistance and supporting the Ukrainian judicial system with the assistance of Expertise France.

What challenges does EU Project Law-Pravo help to address?

EU Project Pravo-Justice supports the Ukrainian judicial system in overcoming the existing challenges caused by both long-term reform process and full-scale war. Since the beginning of judicial reform in 2010, the system has undergone significant changes, but Russian aggression has brought about more challenges, in particular the need to ensure uninterrupted access to justice under martial law. Some key tasks, the Project is focused on, include ensuring access to courts; providing safety to participants of judicial proceedings; supporting the operation of courts in difficult conditions; and restoring public trust in the justice system.

What are the positive results of the Project?

The Project has facilitated the setup of regional justice reform councils, comprising representatives of the legal community, academic institutions and civil society organisations. The councils facilitate effective communication between central authorities and regions by way of monitoring the implementation of reforms at the local level. This approach implies collecting and analysing information to assess the effectiveness of reforms and identify challenges that need to be addressed, taking into account regional needs in law-making. The said councils have laid the foundations of NGO ‘Interregional Expert Centre ‘Pro Justice’, which continues supporting justice reforms across Ukraine.

How can digitisation help ensure better quality of judgments?

The analytical report on remote justice, which I co-authored, emphasises the importance of digitalising judicial proceedings during large-scale movements of the population. Thanks to e-justice, citizens can quickly access information, interact with the court and exercise their right to a fair trial, regardless of their location. This helps to increase the transparency of the judicial process and reduce corruption risks, in particular through automated case allocation. However, some courts are still unable to hold hearings in the videoconference mode due to technical constraints or violations of deadlines and procedures for submitting requests. These issues need to be addressed ASAP.

What are other obstacles to overcome?

The key challenges to address include a critical lack of staff in courts: judges are overloaded, there is a significant shortage of secretaries, judicial assistants, etc. Within the Model Courts Initiative launched by the Project, some steps are being taken to solve this problem, including by modernising court infrastructure, creating recreation areas and children spaces. At the same time, the issues of increasing salaries of judges and court staff, which have not been revisited since 2021, and ensuring adequate protection from external pressure to guarantee independence in the administration of justice, are still relevant.

The annual report of Expertise France (in French) is available here.