On 27 October 2026, a meeting was held with Mr Mykola Gnatovskyy, judge of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court, European Court) in respect of Ukraine, focusing on the admissibility of applications to the Court, the application of the European Convention on Human Rights, and current challenges in national judicial practice.
During the meeting, invited participants, including Ukrainian legal professionals and lawyers, discussed key aspects of preparing applications to the European Court, including the need to clearly identify the Convention issue at the national level, the significant disadvantage criterion, and specific features of the examination of cases by different judicial bodies.
A substantial part of the discussion focused on practical issues relating to the application of the Convention in criminal proceedings, including covert investigative (search) actions, the legal grounds for conducting searches and the exceptional nature of urgent searches, as well as compliance with Convention standards in the detention of individuals. In this context, participants referred to the case law of the Court, including the judgment in Sukachov v. Ukraine.
The discussion also addressed the importance of consistency in judicial practice and the possibility of referring to cases of divergent application of legislation by national courts in the context of compliance with the Convention. As Judge Gnatovskyy emphasised, this concerns primarily exceptional cases in which discrepancies in judicial practice reach a particularly serious level.
This format of discussion provided an opportunity for a professional exchange of views on the application of the European Court standards and helped deepen participants’ understanding of the Convention requirements that are essential for safeguarding human rights in the national criminal justice system.
The event was organised by the Council of Europe in cooperation with the Supreme Court within the framework of the projects “Fostering Human Rights in the Criminal Justice System in Ukraine – Phase II” and “Support to Ukraine in implementation of the Council of Europe standards on the judiciary”, implemented under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” 2023-2026.
