High Qualification Commission of Judges: Between Competitions and Criminal Cases

The High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJ) — the main judicial body responsible for appointments — has now been working in its new composition for two years (half its term).

At present, it is conducting several important personnel procedures simultaneously: a competition for 550 vacant positions in appellate courts; selection for 1,800 positions in local courts; and a competition for 25 judicial positions in the High Anti-Corruption Court — in which, on the first attempt, only two winners were selected.

Two more competitions are approaching for new higher administrative courts that will hear cases against central executive authorities (replacing the now-defunct DACK).

Equally important is the qualification assessment of sitting judges to determine their fitness to remain in office. Yet in a year and a half, just over 300 out of 1,800 judges (20%) have undergone this assessment.

However, the Commission’s new composition has been plagued by various challenges and scandals throughout its term. In March of last year, HQCJ Head Roman Ihnatov resigned. While in March–April of this year, searches were carried out both at HQCJ’s premises and at the homes of some of its members.

HQCJ members called this pressure from the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and appealed to the High Council of Justice (HCJ) to protect their independence.

Will criminal proceedings hinder the successful completion of the qualification assessment of current judges and the selection of new ones? Who is trying to destabilise the process — and why? Most importantly, what has the HQCJ actually achieved over these two years? This article attempts to unpack the situation.

Competition for Appellate Courts

In May 2025, the HQCJ began interviews with candidates for positions in the appellate courts. It took one year and eight months for the HQCJ and the candidates to reach this stage — and Ukraine had to wait a full 11 years. The last appointments of new appellate judges took place back in the Yanukovych era without any open competitions or integrity checks.

An attempt to launch a competition for appellate courts was made in 2019. However, following the dissolution of the previous HQCJ by Parliament, this and other staffing processes were put on hold for four long years.

The result is not just a staffing shortage in the appellate courts — it’s a full-blown collapse. Of the 1,357 judicial positions in the appellate courts, 768 (56.6%) are vacant. For instance, in Sumy, only four judges are currently in office, while the competition is being held for 21 positions.

Over the past year and a half, candidates for the appellate courts have passed exams on legal knowledge and their chosen specialisation, undergone cognitive ability testing and completed a practical written task. For comparison, competitions for the Supreme Court in 2017–2019 took nine and seven months, respectively — and involved fewer vacancies.

This is not an example of slow work by the current HQCJ composition but rather the result of unsuccessful political decisions that halted all qualification procedures in the judiciary for nearly four years. Naturally, this is a story that must never be repeated: halting any institution without transferring its functions to another is a failure of state policy, poor governance, and ultimately harms the population — in this case, severely restricting citizens’ access to justice for years to come. The decision to dissolve the HQCJ in 2019 will only be rectified by 2027 (optimistic forecast) or even 2029 (pessimistic).

Currently, candidates for the appellate courts include judges, academics, and advocates. Of the 2,076 applicants, 41% have progressed to the interview stage.

During the interviews, candidates are assessed against criteria of integrity, professional ethics, and personal and social competencies. They are questioned about assets, trips to Russia, rulings made during the Revolution of Dignity, citations of Russian sources in dissertations, plagiarism, and so forth.

Within two weeks, five of the sixteen candidates interviewed were eliminated. Of the remaining eleven, nine received a negative opinion from the Public Integrity Council. This means their candidacies must be reviewed and confirmed by the HQCJ plenary (15 members), as interviews for candidates to administrative and commercial appellate courts are conducted by chambers (seven to eight members), while those for general courts are conducted by collegiums (three members).

This is quite an unusual situation, as it concerns a single competition. The inconsistency of approaches within the same competition is a serious mistake on the part of the HQCJ, which could lead to parts of the Commission’s decisions being overturned in court. The order in which interviews are conducted is equally problematic, since the most acute shortage of judges is in the general appellate courts — yet they were not prioritised.

There are also differences in how the court assignments for successful candidates are determined. Candidates for the general appellate courts immediately choose the court to which they are applying and are interviewed specifically for “their” court. By contrast, candidates for the appellate administrative and commercial courts first receive a score and ranking, and only then select a court in turn according to their place in the ranking.

There is no logical explanation for applying different approaches within the same competition.

However, this is not the first serious mistake by the HQCJ. The first was the failed competition for the High Anti-Corruption Court.

Competition for the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC)

Unlike the competition for the appellate courts, where at the outset, there were about four candidates per vacant post, the competition for the HACC had 10.5 candidates per vacancy. However, in the end, only two winners were selected for the first instance, and no candidates succeeded in the competition for the HACC’s Appeals Chamber.

Why did this happen?

Primarily because candidates took cognitive tests that were not adapted for judicial competitions while facing an exceptionally high passing threshold of 75%, established by legislation based on proposals from certain international technical assistance (ITA) projects. At the same time, no relevant examples were provided from other countries where such tests had been used to screen judicial candidates.

Moreover, even those who passed the cognitive ability tests failed to correctly solve the practical task — delivering a judicial decision in a criminal case. Some members of the HQCJ, speaking anonymously, explained that the requirements for the practical assignment for the HACC Appeals Chamber were so high that “no one could have managed it”. When logically asked why such a high bar was set, the response was that the task had been developed by external experts engaged by specific ITA projects. The result: a failed competition, missed deadlines for Ukraine’s commitments under the Ukraine Facility and IMF Memoranda, an understaffed HACC, prolonged consideration of high-profile corruption cases, and the necessity to start the competition from scratch.

Last week, Parliament allowed candidates who were unsuccessful in the first competition for the HACC to reapply now, whereas previously, the law only permitted them to do so after a year. This draft law now awaits the president’s signature.

Under favourable circumstances, the HACC will see new judges only in 2026. And even if all 25 vacancies are eventually filled, it will be a Pyrrhic victory — one that could have been avoided if the HQCJ had managed to strike a better balance between the demands of certain donors and the interests of the judiciary. After all, it is the HQCJ’s responsibility to ensure that Ukrainian courts have judges.

Selection for Local Courts

Another major qualification procedure is the selection of 1,800 local court judge positions, which attracted over 9,000 applicants. Ukraine has never undertaken a staffing project of this scale before. The previous selection in 2017 was for 700 positions, with more than 5,000 applicants. Those successful candidates from that round joined the ranks of local court judges last year, preventing a collapse at the first instance level.

However, large-scale projects like this have a significant drawback — time. Last year, the Commission spent approximately four months conducting 430 interviews, averaging about 100 candidates per month.

For 1,800 interviews, it may take a year and a half. Adding ongoing parallel competitions for appellate and higher specialised courts, the process could take even longer.

Does Ukraine have that much time? The question is rhetorical. So, what can be done?

The fact is the HQCJ is primarily a qualification commission.

The legislator has established that for the selection of judges to the first instance courts, a qualification exam is conducted, followed by an interview on integrity with the competition winners. At the same time, for the selection of judges to appellate courts, higher specialised courts, and the Supreme Court, a different procedure is applied — qualification assessment, where candidates’ knowledge is first tested, then their integrity and ethics are checked, and only after that is the candidate’s status as a competition winner decided.

Meanwhile, the body responsible for forming a professional and ethical judicial corps is not the HQCJ but the High Council of Justice (HCJ). Therefore, it would be logical to transfer the function of conducting integrity interviews with candidates for local courts from the HQCJ to the HCJ, as this is precisely its authority.

This would, first of all, save at least a year (more likely a year and a half), but most importantly — align the functions of the two bodies with their legal nature and help avoid duplication, which is obviously important if Ukraine aims to move towards the EU quickly and efficiently. This is especially crucial in situations where these bodies operate with incomplete membership, often barely meeting quorum, and are also subject to interference from law enforcement agencies — whether lawful or not, that remains to be examined.

Searches and Suspicions

The morning of March 11 began at the HQCJ premises with searches. As later reported by the HQCJ, this investigative action was carried out based on a ruling by the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv dated March 10, within the framework of a criminal proceeding registered on July 25, 2024, under Part 1 of Article 376-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal interference with the operation of automated systems in judicial bodies and institutions). This case dates back to last summer, when, during testing as part of the qualification assessment of judges for compliance with their position, the automated system malfunctioned and incorrectly generated sets of test questions. A crime report on this matter was then filed by some judges of the notorious DACK, who, let me remind, have been sabotaging the qualification assessment since 2018.

Why were searches related to the “malfunction” case from July only conducted in March of the following year?

That same week, the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) conducted searches at the home of the Deputy Head of the HQCJ, Oleksii Omelyan. However, this was in a different case unrelated to the Commission’s work — deception of the court or another authorised body (Article 384 of the CC of Ukraine). Oleksiy Omelyan himself described the SBI’s actions as “unlawful” and appealed to the High Council of Justice (HCJ), reporting interference with the work of an HQCJ member.

The Commission, in turn, appealed to the HCJ with a request to ensure guarantees of independence. At the time this article was prepared, the HCJ had not yet issued a decision on the matter.

The SBI is also conducting a criminal investigation regarding the reinstatement of the initial qualification assessment of Pechersky District Court judge O. Tsarevych (Part 1 of Article 182, Part 3 of Article 382 of the CC of Ukraine).

In April 2025, the NABU and the SAPO announced that HQCJ member Volodymyr Luhansky had been served with a notice of suspicion “for embezzlement of public funds in the amount of over UAH 576,000”. According to the investigation, while serving as a judge, Luhansky used a “Doctor of Philosophy” degree as grounds to receive a 15% salary and pension bonus. He obtained this degree in 2011 from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (IAPM) in violation of proper procedure since no Ukrainian university at that time had the legal authority to award such a degree. Luhansky’s actions have been qualified under Part 4 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

Why, then, has only Luhansky been served with a suspicion so far? After all, he did not issue the diploma to himself — nor did he process the bonus payments on his own.

In June, the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) plans to independently assess the actions of Volodymyr Luhansky, which may result in his suspension from office. A similar scenario could unfold in the case of Oleksii Omelian.

This situation poses potentially serious consequences for both the HQCJ and the judiciary as a whole.

Quorum

The matter is that the HQCJ must have at least six judges in its composition to be legally competent. Following the dismissal of Roman Ihnatov, only seven judges remain. If two more are suspended, the Commission will be left with five judges, which would automatically halt its operations under the law.

What is the status of appointing a new HQCJ member?

The Selection Commission has been working for over a year. During this time, it held a competition and submitted two finalists to the HCJ for appointment. However, the HCJ concluded that neither candidate met the standards required of an HQCJ member. This raises the question: where are better-qualified candidates supposed to come from, if this was the quality of the applicant pool?

The Selection Commission has launched a new competition. However, it was soon announced that all USAID projects — including the one providing technical, expert, and financial support to the Commission — would be suspended.

Later, members of the Selection Commission were able to secure alternative funding, which was provided by our Dutch partners (a substantial and invaluable contribution at this stage, for which we owe them sincere gratitude). However, two important nuances remain: first, the funding is channelled through the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), whose experts and contractors are expected to function as the Commission’s secretariat; and second, the term of the Selection Commission expires on June 1. Whether the Commission and its secretariat will have enough time — just two weeks — to review the candidates’ documents (first translating them into English, as half the Commission’s members are international representatives), conduct interviews, and select the winners remains an open question.

We reached out to the Head of the Selection Commission, Ivan Mishchenko, who stated: “At the moment, all Commission members are working around the clock to process the candidates’ documents. We are doing everything possible to meet the June 1 deadline. However, given that the Commission operates under specific rules and procedures, it is essential to strike a balance between those procedures and the compressed timeline so that speed does not come at the expense of the quality of candidates selected as winners of this competition”.

Given the circumstances, it would be reasonable to extend the mandate of the Selection Commission until the current competition is completed (in our estimate — essentially two to three additional weeks). However, this would require a vote in Parliament. And are there enough votes for that?

In truth, the issue is broader: the involvement of international experts is currently limited to the Commission’s first composition. But is Ukraine ready to forgo international experts in selection processes for high judicial positions today? Clearly, it is not. That, however, is a subject for deeper analysis in one of our upcoming pieces.

Instead of a Conclusion

Summing up two years of work by the HQCJ, we can draw seven key conclusions:

1. Even the best-designed competition cannot guarantee the absence of future problems with its winners.
2. A prolonged suspension of the Commission’s activities resets all selection procedures by years, making it impossible to promptly resolve longstanding systemic issues — even if Commission members and the Secretariat work 24/7.
3. All procedures must be logical and consistent: divergent approaches within a single competition, or among similar competitions, can have damaging consequences that could have been avoided through unified rules and procedures.
4. Timing matters: duplication, added layers, or repeated procedures are harmful and should only be applied in exceptional cases — not as a norm.
5. “Not everything that comes from overseas is gold”. Procedures successful in other countries or sectors may not work within Ukraine’s justice system. Building domestic ownership is essential to Ukraine’s successful path toward EU membership.
6. Many actors — directly or indirectly — seek to influence judicial selection procedures. It is doubtful that the wave of criminal investigations is merely coincidental (a topic that also merits future examination). Judicial independence, regrettably, often remains just a principle in law, not in practice.
7. Most importantly: despite all challenges, nearly 9,000 legal professionals aspire to become judges. This is the human capital Ukraine must work with in the coming years — to join the EU and to build a strong, independent judiciary. Our collective task is not to waste this potential but to strike the right balance between independence (including adequate funding), accountability, and dignity. After all, only a truly independent and dignified judge can properly balance the scales of justice.