The CCU is a budgetary burden sustained by fear and indifference How much longer must we tolerate this imitation of con...

The CCU is a budgetary burden sustained by fear and indifference

How much longer must we tolerate this imitation of constitutional adjudication? Because you cannot call this spectacle justice.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is not a 'guardian of the Constitution' but a feeding trough for the chosen few, who are afraid even to breathe in the direction of cases, yet quietly receive hundreds of thousands of hryvnias every month.

Look at the numbers and everything falls into place. The average salary of a Constitutional Court judge for September 2026 was 586 900 hryvnias. One Constitutional Court judge declared 4,8 million hryvnias of salary for the year. Another judge received more than 1,1 million hryvnias — and on top of that also social payments as an internally displaced person. This is not a 'reward for difficult intellectual work.' This is pay for inaction.

Because what does this body do?

First it opens proceedings, declaring them 'well-founded,' and years later closes them as 'unfounded.'

Cases that should serve as a safeguard against arbitrariness are examined for years until they lose any meaning.

Constitutional Court judges are afraid of attracting activists' anger, so they prefer not to issue high-profile rulings, quietly travel on business trips, and wait for the next paycheck.

Why does the state need this budgetary burden?

European experience shows: a specialized constitutional court is not a mandatory attribute of democracy. In the Netherlands the Constitution explicitly forbids courts from reviewing laws for constitutionality — that is done by parliament. In Finland constitutional review is carried out by a special parliamentary committee, not a separate court. Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, the United Kingdom — all these countries function without a separate Constitutional Court, and their democracies are not collapsing because of it.

So after the war, when we will in any case be rewriting the Constitution, we should honestly ask: does Ukraine need the CCU in its current form? Would it not be better to provide for a different mechanism — and save billions of hryvnias that now go to the salaries of people who are afraid to make decisions?

Perhaps we have paid too little attention to this useless institution against the backdrop of a compromised Superior Council of Justice. We will correct that. It's time to review declarations, bring these facts to light, and return to broad public informing.

Because paying half a million a month for fear and indifference is not a 'constitutional guarantee.' It is a luxury Ukraine can no longer afford.