Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called to speed up judicial reform in Ukraine, namely the finalization of bills on the right to a fair trial and on amendments to the law on the judicial system, which were passed by the Ukrainian parliament at first reading.
“As I understand, the deadline for submitting proposals is over. The discussion and approval of these bills should be completed immediately,” Poroshenko said at a meeting of the National Council for Reforms in Kyiv on Feb. 2.
The agreed bills should be passed as soon as possible in order to ensure an effectively change of the judicial branch, the president said.
Speaking about the content of the reform of the judiciary branch of power, Poroshenko said that “the influence of other branches of power on courts should be strictly limited” and the right to a fair trial should be ensured.
However, the president said he wasn’t prepared to agree to turning the president into an “outside observer.”
The president also expressed regret that the lustration process of judges hadn’t in fact begun yet. “In my opinion, the courts have not launched lustration yet, we cannot put up with this and remain in such a situation,” Poroshenko said.
The timing of judicial reform in Ukraine should be more concise, the president said. “I’ve had a look at the schedule of judicial reform, and I’ve got the impression that you are not in a hurry. I insistently ask to revise the schedule to boost the reform,” he said, addressing deputy heads of the presidential administration Dmitry Shymkiv and Oleksiy Filatov.
