An online meeting with the European Union Project “Pravo-Justice” Team Leader was held
at the Constitutional Court of Ukraine
Today, on April 14, 2020, Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Serhiy Holovaty and Judge of the Court Vasyl Lemak held a working online meeting with EU Project “Pravo-Justice” Team Leader Davydas Vitkauskas.
On behalf of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Serhiy Holovaty welcomed the representatives of the Project and thanked the experts for the work done to monitor the application of administrative justice in Ukraine and the presentation of its final report.
In turn, Davydas Vitkauskas informed the interlocutors that the EU Project “Pravo-Justice” has been assisting Ukraine with ongoing reforms of the rule of law since 2017, in particular by providing the necessary institutions for a stable reform of the justice sector in line with European standards and best comparative practices.
The participants of the meeting discussed a number of important issues, including the incorporation of decisions of the ECHR and the Constitutional Court of Ukraine into the jurisprudence of administrative courts. The main attention was paid to the exchange of information between the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and administrative courts and whether it facilitates the effective application of the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on the unconstitutionality of legal norms by the administrative courts.
In this context, the Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Serhiy Holovaty noted that the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, as well as the legal positions of the Court set out in them, are a source of law. Decisions and opinions adopted by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine are, in particular, binding and final, thus, after the publication legal positions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine set out in them, being in normative unity with the provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine interpreted in these decisions, become direct regulators of public relations, in particular, determine the content and scope of constitutional rights and freedoms. Such decisions are publicly available and can and should be made known to legal practitioners and judges who administer justice in the field of relevant public relations.
At the same time, the Court noted that in Ukraine due to imperfect legislative regulation, there are problems with the execution of judicial acts, including the ones of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which negatively affects the image of the state at the international level. The issue became especially acute after the introduction of the constitutional complaint institute in 2017, which is an instrument of protection of rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Basic Law of Ukraine. This is also one of the reasons for the large number of applications of Ukrainian citizens to the European Court of Human Rights.
The Constitutional Court emphasised that the main task of all judicial authorities is to protect and restore violated human rights. Therefore, effective mechanisms should be put in place to improve cooperation in this area. In view of the above, Davydas Vitkauskas stated that the Project intends to begin work on resolving the problems identified in the monitoring and implementation of the recommendations and suggested to deepen cooperation with the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
The parties thanked each other for a meaningful and interesting meeting and expressed their desire to continue the dialogue. In the opinion of the interlocutors, such cooperation will have positive consequences; in particular, it will contribute to a better understanding of issues of incorporation of decisions of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in the jurisprudence, including administrative courts.
The meeting was also attended by the Head of the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Viktor Beschastnyi and representatives of the EU Project “Pravo-Justice” Inna Liniova, Oksana Tsymbrivska, Kostiantyn Krasovskyi and Iliia Chernohorenko.
