Weekly Digest. Top News of EU Project Pravo-Justice (11 – 24 March 2024)

This is to keep you informed about the top news of EU Project Pravo-Justice. Meet the fifth issue of Weekly Digest.

• Advisory Group of Experts held interviews with all CCU candidate justices.

A total of 29 candidates were interviewed from March 2 to March 8 to evaluate whether they meet the criteria of high moral character.

• • At the invitation of EU Project Pravo-Justice, former US Department of Justice Counsel for War Crimes Accountability, legendary Nazi hunter Eli M. Rosenbaum visited Ukraine. In his interview with the “My-Ukraina” TV channel during the “United for Justice. United for Heritage” conference, he said that Putin would be punished for his crimes.

“Putin’s regime may be replaced by a government that will be more committed to the rule of law and accountability for crimes against humanity, war crimes, aggression... I believe that one day, the Russian society will wake up and realise that Putin’s actions have resulted in the deaths of thousands and thousands of young Russians, causing disability to even more... He is responsible for all of this and could stop it now. But I think he will not stop it himself until someone stops him. The brave Armed Forces of Ukraine are fighting for this goal. They are fighting for all of us in the free world. We are very grateful to them,” said Eli M. Rosenbaum.

• EU Project Pravo-Justice has been actively promoting European integration reforms in many areas, including improving insolvency procedures.

Oleksii Movchan, Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Economic Development stated this at the presentation of the annual monitoring of the application of insolvency legislation. The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine presented the research with the support of the EU Project Pravo-Justice.

“The research addresses two relevant issues most frequently faced by participants in bankruptcy cases, namely, foreclosure on the debtor’s property that is pledged as collateral and the procedure for a creditor to waive the collateral in bankruptcy or insolvency cases. Proper regulation of these issues will help to align the national legislation with European and international standards,” said Oleksii Movchan.

• Also, at the presentation of the Monitoring Report 2023, Oksana Tsymbrivska, Team Leader of EU Project Pravo-Justice, told “Kyiv” TV channel that thanks to the Online Monitoring Platform, the public has the opportunity to participate in developing legal policy.

Furthermore, Oksana Tsymbrivska emphasised that the Project will further contribute to improving the platform. These efforts include introducing new IT product functionality and expanding the scope of product use.

• On March 15, the roundtable “Report on the Debtor’s Financial and Property Status as a Component of the Fullness of the Bankruptcy Trustee’s Actions” was held. The Ukrainian National Insolvency Trustees Association organised the event with the support of EU Project Pravo-Justice.

In particular, Iryna Zharonkina, Enforcement and Protection of Property Rights Component Lead of EU Pravo-Justice Project, said the current Guidelines for Early Warning Tools must be amended. According to her, in 2022, experts from the EU Project Pravo-Justice analysed the document. They concluded that the Guidelines do not reflect changes to a number of regulations and are not in line with the current Bankruptcy Code.

“We propose to use the modern risk-oriented approach as a basis for analysing financial and commercial operations. This approach will be aimed at establishing the circumstances leading to the deterioration of the status company, analysing the current state of assets, liabilities, equity, identifying key risks of the enterprise’s operations, and making a conclusion about the inevitability of bankruptcy or the possibility of rehabilitation,” said Iryna Zharonkina.

• Also on March 15, the Office of the Prosecutor General held a dialogue with the involvement of Deputy Prosecutor General Viktoriia Litvinova. The event was also attended by Olena Kochura, national expert of EU Project Pravo-Justice. According to her, a safe society is one of the government's priorities, especially during the war.

“The development and modernisation of the penitentiary sector is one of the areas EU Project Pravo-Justice focuses on. We are ready to provide our support and assistance for the implementation of the best global, including European, practices, in improving the penitentiary system of Ukraine. Their implementation will contribute to greater quality and efficiency of work with convicts in preparing such persons for release and will help reducing reoffending,” said Olena Kochura.

• On March 23, the Advisory Group of Experts announced the results of the stage of evaluating the moral qualities of Constitutional Court candidate justices.

Six Constitutional Court candidate justices under the Parliament’s quota and three candidates under the quota of the Congress of Judges of Ukraine were assessed as meeting the criterion of high moral qualities.

As a reminder, the reform of the selection of justices of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine is one of the key recommendations of the European Commission within the EU Enlargement Package. Therefore, the implementation of this reform is crucial for Ukraine to continue its efforts on European integration path.