The opposition factions Batkivschyna, Svoboda and UDAR have submitted to parliament a bill on the fulfillment of the European standards of public disclosure in the judicial system, which they say will favor creation of the mechanism for fighting corruption in the courts.
The bill, No. 2019, was registered in parliament on January 15.
Secretary of Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Rule of Law and Justice and Batkivschyna member Pavlo Petrenko, who was elected as rapporteur of this bill, stressed that the level of corruption in the justice system of Ukraine has reached “a critical level”.
“The current authorities have encouraged this. Last year, the parliamentary ruling party majority allowed judges not to make public their income and property declarations,” the press service of Front for Change party quotes Petrenko as saying.
Moreover, according to the deputy, the ruling party majority in fact placed court decisions on a secret list. In 2011, there were amendments made to the law, according to which the list of court decisions of the general jurisdiction, before its inclusion into the public single state register, has to be approved by the Council of Judges of Ukraine under agreement with the State Judicial Administration.
“Today it’s possible to say with full confidence that there is no independent judicial system in Ukraine,” Petrenko said.
The opposition in the bill demands that all judges of Ukraine make public their declarations on property, income, expenses and duties of a financial character on the official Web site of the State Judicial Administration.
The bill foresees the inclusion of all decisions of the courts of general jurisdiction into the single state register, without exception.
