DEJURE Foundation: Judicial Reform After "Femida"

Operations "Femida" and "Forrest Gump" are much more than headlines on social media and in the news. The materials read aloud by prosecutors revealed an extensive system of informal contacts with judges, attempts to arrange favorable decisions, and resolving issues outside legally established procedures. The problem is not limited to one person, one office, or one presidential term. It is a system. And now it is critically important to understand how to rebuild it so that it will be resilient to any next patron, intermediary, or political center of influence.

"A man of our own in the courts"

Among the suspects this time were former Deputy Head of the Office of the President (OP) Iryna Mudra and Head of the Directorate for Legal Policy of the OP Viktor Dubovyk. Both were responsible, among other things, for judicial reform. Such a position or the informal role of a person responsible for the judicial direction at the President’s office is far from new.

Under Viktor Yanukovych that center of influence was Andriy Portnov. Under Petro Poroshenko the President’s Administration’s judicial reform was overseen by Oleksiy Filatov, and significant informal influence on the judicial system was also associated with Oleksandr Hranovskyi and Ihor Kononenko. Under Volodymyr Zelensky the area was at various times overseen by Ruslan Riaboshapka, Andriy Smyrnov, and the aforementioned Iryna Mudra.

A telling example is the story of Andriy Smyrnov. At the start of the full-scale invasion, judges of the Kyiv District Administrative Court (OASK) attempted by their decision to restore Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency. To prevent this, special forces had to physically disconnect the court from the register of court decisions until April. Instead of a harsh response from Volodymyr Zelensky to actions that aided the enemy, the OASK judges received a “serious conversation” from his court manager Smyrnov. The court itself was liquidated only in December 2022 — four days after the United States imposed sanctions on its chair Pavlo Vovk. This approach looked more like an attempt to strike a deal with the system than to change it.

Names and methods changed, but the political incentive remained. A court under control expands the powers of the authorities; an independent court limits them. Attempts to persuade the current President or his Office to “simply not interfere in the courts” do not work. One political team’s self-restraint does not determine the behavior of the next. Abolishing the position of the President’s deputy for judicial affairs by itself will not solve the problem.

Therefore, the solution is not only to remove a single post. It is necessary to build a judicial system capable of refusing anyone who comes with a request, a threat, or an offer.

Independence begins with integrity

A court will not become independent simply because politicians promise not to call judges. The temptation to use justice for one’s own purposes will always exist. It is important to build a system that will not succumb to influence even when instructions are personally dictated “from above.” The reform of the last decade was supposed to cleanse and renew the judicial corps through judicial governance bodies.

However, the initial qualification assessment took place without the Public Integrity Council (PIC) and effectively without an integrity check as such. Of about three hundred judges of the Kyiv and Kyiv region appellate courts who went through this procedure, none were dismissed.

In subsequent qualification assessments, the old compositions of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) and the High Council of Justice (HCJ) assessed almost three thousand judges, but only 15 lost their positions. The bodies also failed to provide adequate vetting of candidates for the Supreme Court (SC), when PIC conclusions were largely ignored. As a result, all four heads of cassation courts in the “new” SC turned out to be the former heads of abolished higher courts.

Further reform of the HQCJ and HCJ with the participation of international experts proved that things can be different. The renewed bodies differ noticeably from their predecessors, but they still cleanse the system more symbolically than numerically.

Although the new HQCJ agrees with 43% of the PIC’s negative conclusions and sends every fifth judge it reviewed for dismissal, the number of final dismissals by the HCJ remains very modest. In 2025, there were only 10 such cases; the HCJ dismissed another 30 judges for disciplinary offenses. This is not the pace of cleansing you expect from reformed bodies. However, the HCJ did dare to dismiss Pavlo Vovk, whom the previous composition could not even suspend from exercising justice.

At the same time, instead of deserved dismissals, the HCJ allowed judges of Maidan, OASK judges, judges who falsified decisions, or even judges who failed a law exam to go into “honorable” retirement with lifetime payments.

Moreover, the unreformed Supreme Court slowed the judicial reform by initially allowing almost 200 non-integrity judges not to complete the qualification assessment and to remain in their positions with increased remuneration. This practice was later changed, but at that time the SC created another group of “Babiy’s judges,” who also were permitted not to complete assessments even despite a negative Public Integrity Council conclusion.

Among those who remained in the system is Inna Otrosh, who during her interview effectively accused the Ukrainian authorities of occupying Crimea and refused to explain the origin of a significant portion of her property. Or Taras Zayets, a Maidan-era judge, who in February 2014 detained a protest participant for 60 days based solely on a law enforcement report, and later failed to mention this in his integrity declaration.

Another example is Kostiantyn Kobyliansky, a judge of the liquidated OASK with unexplained assets. In August 2026 the new HQCJ recommended transferring Kobyliansky to the Kyiv District Administrative Court. Along with him the Commission recommended Ihor Pohrybnychenko, who is accused in two criminal cases, and four other judges of the liquidated OASK. Thus the Commission opened the way for people who served Pavlo Vovk loyally and are figures in criminal proceedings to continue administering justice.

All this creates an environment in which new stories about political influence on the courts remain not accidental but a foreseeable risk.

Courts will not cleanse themselves

After the Revolution of Dignity there was an attempt to cleanse the courts by judicial self-governance. But the principle of full independence of the judiciary and the tendency of the system to close in on itself—which works well in developed democracies—does not work in Eastern European judicial systems that self-produce unintegrity judges who then vote for unintegrity representatives in bodies and commissions, and the cycle continues. You should close the system on itself only after it has been cured of the corruption plague and old habits of writing decisions “on the call” from above. Against this background, the proposal to remove the development and implementation of the justice system reform strategy from the Office of the President and hand it over to the HCJ and the Supreme Court looks absolutely exotic.

The reality is that today the President is the only political figure who has enough influence to implement or stall any reform. Over the past 12 years no judicial reform moved forward without the President’s support, especially now with a parliamentary majority. The judicial representatives in the form of the SC and HCJ see no need for changes; they are content with the status quo. They had the status, powers, and years, yet failed to propose their own convincing strategy.

Even the HCJ renewed with international expert involvement has not yet become an engine of systemic renewal. And the Supreme Court, after the conviction of Vsevolod Knyazev, notice of suspicion to four other judges of the Grand Chamber, and stories about Russian citizenship of Bohdan Lviv and Valentyna Simonenko, cannot claim to be the chief author of its own reform.

So it is far too early to speak about transferring the judicial reform strategy into the hands of the HCJ and the Supreme Court. Moreover, there have already been several such strategies before that nobody implemented. You can draft another ten the same, but if there are no levers to implement them, the documents from the HCJ or SC are worth little.

The only real documents that can move reforms forward are Ukraine’s commitments on the path to EU accession. And even then, only those tied strictly to international financial assistance with clear deadlines. The EU set interim criteria for chapters 23 and 24 on justice, fundamental rights, freedom, and security. Without meeting them, accession negotiations will not move to the final stage. The Ukraine Facility mechanism supplements this list with concrete reforms, deadlines, and funding tied to fulfillment of commitments; that is precisely what should be focused on.

It also effectively duplicates the judicial reforms from the Kachka–Kos list — 10 main reforms the EU expects from us in the near term, including: easing the work of NABU and SAP, competitions for Prosecutor General and the DBR director, international experts in the procedures for renewing the SC and HQCJ, filling vacancies in the Constitutional Court and HCJ. The problem is not the lack of a plan, but political will to implement it and partners’ readiness to demand real results rather than crediting a simulation of change.

The most vivid example of simulating implementation of the Ukraine Facility is draft law No. 13165–2. It reduced the number of substantive statements in judges’ integrity declarations from 28 to 8, removed the question about asset-to-income correspondence and decisions concerning participants of the Revolution of Dignity, and eliminated checks of information about family ties.

Declaration requirements for trips to Russia and to occupied territories were limited to the previous year. Liability remained only for deliberate falsehood, so it can always be tried to be avoided by claiming forgetfulness or misunderstanding. Judicial appeals also allow waiting out disciplinary statutes of limitations.

Thus even an international review of the Supreme Court will receive an almost empty instrument. European partners counted this as fulfillment of the commitment, yet such leniency only encourages further simulations of reform. A review of current SC judges and selection for more than 50 vacancies with decisive participation of international experts are already included in the EU accession commitments, but, as we see, neither the Ukrainian authorities nor international partners are treating this with due responsibility yet.

International experts are needed to the outcome, not to a date

Another argument underscored again by operations "Femida" and "Forrest Gump" is that it is too early to abandon international experts in key competitions. Attempts to dilute their decisive vote only confirm the value of this safeguard. Experience shows that the greater the weight of internationals on a commission, the better the candidate selection, as in competitions for the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC). But when a commission member delegated by the unreformed prosecution is the odious lawyer Oleksiy Shevchuk, the result is predictable.

The problem is not only political influence but also whom the judicial system itself delegates. The latest congress of judges and the election of a new composition of the Judges’ Council again showed that judges support representatives whose integrity raises serious questions. For years the Judges’ Council has delegated dubious candidates to bodies and commissions that are supposed to cleanse the system.

More than 1200 judges still have not completed their qualification assessment. Even the renewed HQCJ let Pavlo Horbasenko pass assessment and recommended him to an appellate court. Now he has become one of the “main protagonists” of operation "Femida." This confirms that the judicial corps has not been cleansed and cannot obtain a monopoly on self-reproduction. This path leads not to reform but back to 2013.

And the disclosed materials in the Olga Stefanishyna case showed a scenario in which Ukrainian members of selection commissions are simply given instructions regarding candidates and assessments. And in case of refusal to comply, other means are used — DBR searches and criminal proceedings. Pressure has normalized to such an extent that even Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko allows himself phrases like “I will come after each in person.”

What matters is not the passport of the expert but their real protection from Ukrainian levers of influence. A person who lives in Ukraine, has family, property, and professional ties here is far more vulnerable to searches and threats. International experts permanently living in Ukraine will face particularly difficult tasks at least until DBR and prosecution are reformed. Back in 2 January the President promised to prepare and submit to Parliament a draft law on DBR renewal within a month. However, the document has still not been submitted.

At the same time, internationals’ participation must be directly linked to national bodies’ capacity to independently conduct integrity competitions. If problems remain at the moment of EU accession, a transitional monitoring mechanism like the CVM used during Romania’s and Bulgaria’s accession is needed. Until then international experts must retain a decisive vote in key competitions.

Equal status does not mean equal integrity

After the scandal with the latest officials of the Office of the President, the supposedly obvious thesis resurfaces: “The President should not evaluate candidates for judges’ positions and therefore must sign all decrees upon HCJ submissions.” This concerns, among others, the mentioned Inna Otrosh and company, whom the President did not appoint.

But when judicial governance bodies fail and allow unintegrity judges into the system, the President is put in a difficult position.

On one hand the law does not make the President another selection commission and obliges him to automatically issue a decree on a judge’s appointment within 30 days after receiving a submission. On the other, under the Constitution, a judge may be appointed only if competent and of integrity, and the President is responsible for implementing Ukraine’s strategic course toward EU membership. Therefore, mechanically signing all submissions can also contradict that responsibility. Even within the Supreme Court there are opinions according to which the President should not mechanically sign a decree when there are reasonable doubts about a candidate.

There is no good solution here. The President should not at his own discretion decide whom to appoint and whom to leave without a decree for years. Yet he is involuntarily pushed onto that path by those who “hacked” the assessment procedures, returned unintegrity judges, and created legislative exceptions for certain judicial castes.

The judicial community cannot, after another exposure of bribed judges, such as in the Kyiv Court of Appeal, distance itself and say everyone has their own responsibility, and then demand equal status and remuneration for judges who passed assessment and for those who circumvented procedures and clearly do not meet judicial requirements. Under such conditions, the call to sign everything means bringing the judicial system several more years closer to Yanukovych and Portnov’s “gold standard.”

The answer is this — the HQCJ and HCJ must conduct checks so that submissions regarding clearly unintegrity candidates do not reach the President at all. And the Supreme Court should not seek procedural loopholes to return those loyal to the old system. Then the President will indeed perform only a ceremonial function, and society will not depend on his selective signature. And that can become a natural consequence of electing independent and integrity candidates to key judicial positions. But the problem is not limited to personnel decisions in the courts. As long as the Prosecutor General’s Office, DBR, and other law enforcement bodies remain controlled by Bankova and press judges, even integrity judges may not withstand the pressure.

What must happen after "Femida"

Ukraine does not need a new “right” Deputy Head of the OP for courts or the formal abolition of that post. What is needed is a functional system. Everyone must perform their role. The Supreme Court — dispense justice; HQCJ and HCJ — form and cleanse the judicial corps; government and parliament — be responsible for state policy.

And the President, given the actual state of affairs, should focus not on controlling judges but on reforming the judicial system. No one else now can realistically take political responsibility for meeting the EU interim criteria and Ukraine Facility commitments and give the necessary impetus to adopt and implement the corresponding changes.

This concerns cleansing and renewing the Supreme Court, preserving the decisive role of independent experts in key procedures, preventing the return of unintegrity judges through procedural loopholes, and, finally, reforming the institutions that exert pressure on judicial governance bodies, independent judges, and commission members — DBR, OPG, etc.

A separate priority is the urgent renewal of the prosecutor’s offices, the bar, and changes in legal education and scholarship. Replacing one official can close one channel of influence. Only changing rules and institutions will prevent the system from spawning a new Portnov tomorrow.

DEJURE Foundation; Ukrainska Pravda

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