Even though, at the end of 2023, the HCJ introduced prioritization of considering disciplinary complaints against judges, in practice, these standards were never implemented, since the reporting members of the HCJ themselves are the ones who decide what complaints to follow up on, and which ones can be put on the back burner.
It was commendable that the High Council of Justice defined the prioritization criteria in disciplinary complaints in its new Rules of Procedure. This envisioned priority consideration of complaints:
if the disciplinary proceeding may result in the judge’s dismissal from office on the grounds specified in clauses 3, 6 of Article 126, part six of the Constitution of Ukraine;
regarding a judge who applied for resignation if the respective disciplinary proceeding may result in the judge’s dismissal from office on the grounds specified in clauses 3, 6 of Article 126, part six of the Constitution of Ukraine;
regarding a judge whose qualification assessment was suspended in connection with the consideration of the disciplinary complaint;
regarding a judge whom the High Qualification Commission of Judges recommended for appointment on a vacant position or transfer following competitive recruitment if the respective disciplinary proceeding may result in the judge’s dismissal from office on the grounds specified in clauses 3, 6 of Article 126, part six of the Constitution of Ukraine;
if the complaint contains information about the judge's actions that caused significant public interest.
These criteria are meant to prevent situations when disciplinary complaints regarding flagrant and high-profile cases when judges violate the law or commit disciplinary violations are “lost” among thousands of other complaints. For example, there are only three disciplinary cases now (1, 2, 3) against the head of the Kyiv Administrative Court Pavlo Vovk, which is evidently inconsistent with this judge’s level of “accomplishments.”
However, in practice, it turned out that the High Council of Justice is incapable of explaining the application of these criteria or why the issue on prioritizing a certain disciplinary complaint is left to the discretion of the reporting HCJ member, which undermines the very idea of prioritization. Analyzing the results of the HCJ’s work since it resumed its disciplinary functions, we can conclude that the Council avoids the consideration of the most high-profile disciplinary cases of the highest public interest as a priority. Statistics shows that even though the HCJ processed almost 6,000 complaints, during this time it has only brought just over 50 judges to liability, while ignoring a number of important priority cases. At the same time, certain HCJ members found the time to “filter through” up to a thousand complaints, which raises significant doubts regarding how meticulous they were.
This shows in the attempts to stop the consideration of some of them (disciplinary cases against Kniaziev and Tandyr that are considered with significant delays for any disciplinary case, let alone a high-profile one) or reluctance to rapidly respond to issues of opening disciplinary cases based on complaints against judges (e.g., against KDAC judges).
