On 8 February 2019, all-Ukrainian seminar for national judges on election dispute resolution took place in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. During the seminar, nearly 50 judges from Ukrainian administrative courts of appeal and district administrative courts discussed peculiarities of application of electoral legislation in view of upcoming Presidential elections in Ukraine, and more than a hundred participants joined a live stream of the event.
Throughout the seminar the judges examined practical aspects of application of national electoral legislation by courts, application of legislation on administrative proceedings to election related cases, the ECtHR case law and current national case law in the field of election dispute resolution, as well as European electoral standards and good practice in electoral matters.
Speakers of the seminar included the top management of the National School of Judges, namely, Mykola Onishchuk, Rector of the School, and Natalia Shuklina, Vice-Rector for Research, Judge Mykhailo Smokovych, Chief Justice of the Administrative Court of Cassation of the Supreme Court, Judge Vsevolod Kniazev, Secretary of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, Judge Vitalii Kuzmyshyn, Head of 7th Administrative Court of Appeal, Yurii Kluchkovskyi, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Theoretical and State Legal Studies at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, expert of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, and Dmytro Tretyakov, lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights.
The speakers underlined the Administrative Justice’s key role in protecting constitutional electoral right of every Ukrainian citizen and, therefore, in ensuring fundamental human rights and freedoms, the rule of law and democracy in Ukraine. They also focused the attention of judges on the fact that 2019 Presidential elections in Ukraine are meant to be the mirror of transformations in the Ukrainian judiciary achieved throughout the recent years of justice sector reform in Ukraine.
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The seminar was organised with the support of Council of Europe projects on “Supporting the transparency, inclusiveness and integrity of electoral practice in Ukraine” and “Supporting constitutional and legal reforms, constitutional justice and assisting the Verkhovna Rada in conducting reforms aimed at enhancing its efficiency”
