Consolidating Ukraine’s Justice Sector Reform

Human Rights National Implementation Division, Directorate of Human Rights, Directorate General I of the Council of Europe provides expert advice and technical assistance to the member States on various aspects of judiciary. In particular, Human Rights Directorate works to promote, protect and develop human rights and rule of law and to ensure the compliance of the Council of Europe’s member states. For this, the directorate puts into practice the Council of Europe’s unique strategic triangle of standard setting, monitoring and co-operation, which establishes mutual links between developing legally binding standards which are monitored by independent mechanisms and supplemented by co-operation and support activities. The programmes of reform of judiciary assistance are financed through the ordinary budget, voluntary contributions by member states and within the Council of Europe.

Why do we implement the project in Ukraine?

In Ukraine, the Council of Europe implements a 16 months follow-up Project to boost some of the most important results of the Council of Europe/European Union (CoE/EU) Joint Project “Consolidation of justice sector policy reform in Ukraine” and is primarily focused on assisting stakeholders in implementation of the Justice Sector Reforms Progress Review Methodology (PRM). The Project is funded by the CoE Action Plan for Ukraine for 2015-2017 which is a joint initiative of the Council of Europe and the Ukrainian authorities and approved by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 21 January 2015. The Action Plan aims to support Ukraine in fulfilling its statutory and specific obligations as a Council of Europe member state and to contribute towards addressing reform of judiciary.

What are the Project objectives?

The overall objective is further consolidating the efforts of Ukraine in pursuing justice sector reforms. The Project will also help to measure the impact of reforms, as well as the CoE’s and other international stakeholders’ interventions in this area in Ukraine and informing the CoE and other international stakeholders on the course of reforms and further needs for support.

Another component of the Project is aimed at conducting an all-encompassing needs assessment for the Ukrainian National Bar Association in order to further assist the development of an independent and professional Bar in Ukraine.

The specific objectives are:

To provide support to the Ukrainian stakeholders in coordinating the implementation of the Justice Sector (PRM) and namely: in gaining sufficient understanding of the use of PRM, implementing parts of the methodology and coordinating the collection and presentation of information under the PRM;
To design, develop and implement an online platform for collecting and coordinating information that comprises the PRM in order to duly inform the stakeholders and general public on the progress and positive outcomes of the justice sector reforms;
To conduct needs assessment of the Ukrainian National Bar Association.

Who are our partners?

The main partner of the project is the Justice Reform Council under the President of Ukraine. The Project also cooperates with the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Ukrainian National Bar Association, judiciary, General Prosecutor’s Office, other justice sector institutions, local and international civil society organizations engaged in justice sector reform.

Project Summary in English

Latest News

Back Delegates from High Council of Justice and Ministry of Justice visit Strasbourg (10-11 July 2018)

Under the framework of the CoE Project “Consolidating Ukraine’s Justice Sector Reform” a delegation of representatives from the High Council of Justice’s Strategic planning department and the Strategic planning and European integration directorate within Ministry of Justice have visited Strasbourg on 10-11 July to focus on the monitoring & evaluation methodologies in order to track the progress of justice sector reform in their country.

Implementation of the Justice Sector Reform Strategy for 2015-2020 in Ukraine required tocreate specialized strategic planning departments in the stakeholders-participants of the reform in order to coordinate their workplans with early strategy implementation plans, as well as to monitor and evaluate the results. In view of that the Council has sought to engage representatives of the mentioned departments in a visit to the headquarters.

In the course of the two-day study visit the delegation had a unique opportunity to discuss the theory of monitoring and evaluation methodology and procedures with the Department of Internal Oversight, enjoy insights shared by the Justice Reform Cooperation Unit, HELP Unit and Department of the Execution of the ECHR.

The main topic of the visit was to study the benefits of introduction and implementation of Progress Review Methodology in the Justice Sector Reform. As both Ministry of Justice and the High Council of Justice are the key institutions in coordination of the efforts in their respective chapters of the Justice Sector Reform Strategy the visit proved to be an effective advocating effort for adopting the CoE-developed PRM as the backbone for evaluation of the progress of the reform, and the only tool which is in essence “impact-based”, not “activities-based”.

It is expected that consolidated efforts of the stakeholders of the justice sector reform, and implementation of the progress review methodology will have positive influence on the reform of the justice sector in Ukraine in order to ensure and uphold human rights and rule of law for all subjects.

16 July 2018