Vira Levko, a judge in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, typically handles dozens of administrative cases and several criminal hearings every day. She said there are others who are far busier than her.
When Levko tells colleagues abroad about her workload, they find it hard to believe.
“They don’t understand how a judge can hold so much information in their head,” she told Reuters at the Dniprovskyi District Court.
Ukraine is desperately short of judges, and is launching a long-delayed nationwide hiring spree to fill more than 2,000 vacancies and vet around as many sitting judges for potential malfeasance.
The ambitious effort, undertaken during the country’s war with Russia, is key to clearing a backlog of cases that has delayed justice for many Ukrainians.
It is also central to cementing the rule of law, a condition for Ukraine to one day join the EU.
Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had signaled his desire for Ukraine to join the EU, meaning that the fight against corruption and embracing good governance became priorities.
A poll released this month by the Razumkov Centre think-tank in Kyiv suggested only 18 percent of Ukrainians trust the courts, the legacy of a judicial system long eroded by corruption.
The European Commission. in a memo issued last year, said: “The judiciary continues to be regarded as one of the least trusted and credible institutions.”
Attempts to reform the courts after the 2014 Maidan revolution, which toppled a pro-Russian president and set Kyiv on a pro-Western course, were only partly successful and ran into systemic resistance, watchdogs say.
Two judicial governance bodies responsible for hiring and disciplining judges were effectively frozen for years, resulting in about 2,600 vacancies, or roughly one third of the judiciary, as judges retired or were dismissed.
Court cases have piled up across Ukraine as a result. Some courtrooms have been turned into storage spaces stacked high with case files.
The regional appeals court in northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy has only four judges left out of a full staff of 35. It faces total deadlock if just two judges retire, as they currently have the right to do.
“There is not a single court in Ukraine whose workload is normal,” said Ruslan Sydorovych, deputy head of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, which oversees the selection of judges.
“It’s just that in some places it’s big, and in others it’s simply a catastrophe,” he said.
The war adds an additional burden, as about 100,000 alleged Russian crimes are already being investigated.
The two governance bodies were recently relaunched under EU pressure, and about 1,100 appeals and local court vacancies would be filled in the coming months.
Sydorovych described it as the first step in a “super marathon” of hiring that could take several years and likely involve up to 7,000 interviews.
Selecting judges is only part of the challenge. About 2,000 sitting judges also require integrity checks, part of the judicial house-cleaning launched, but never finished, after Maidan.
Halyna Chyzhyk, who served on a civic advisory council that monitors judges, said the entire process was manageable but that authorities should not try to rush it.
“If the priority is on [ensuring] quality, then you’ll need to sacrifice a bit of speed, and I think Ukrainian society understands that,” she said.
Ensuring that Ukraine’s top courts, long plagued by scandal, do not become instruments for wielding political influence could prove an even tougher task.
“We have judges who helped raid billions in property, who massively violated human rights, who hold Russian citizenship and actively helped Russia in the first days of the war,” said Mykhailo Zhernakov, of the DEJURE Foundation, an NGO in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian Constitutional Court, in particular, drew the ire of the EU and democracy campaigners by attempting to dismantle anti-corruption reforms before the war, and its former head is wanted in connection with several criminal cases, including bribing a witness.
Oleksandr Tupytskyi, now living in Vienna according to Ukrainian media reports, has denied wrongdoing and said the cases against him are political.
The EU recommended that Kyiv pass legislation giving international experts greater say over the makeup of the Constitutional Court, which currently has five vacancies.
However, that is not an instant fix, Zhernakov said.
According to DEJURE, which tracks judicial reforms, at least two recent Ukrainian appointees to the court’s selection committee were “politically affiliated individuals with questionable reputations.”
“The biggest political difficulty is to build institutions that would be independent enough,” Zhernakov said.
The overhaul of the judiciary coincides with a broader bid to crack down on corruption, as tolerance among Ukrainians for official abuse wears thin at a time when tens of thousands have died defending Ukraine’s fragile democracy.
A July survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that 89 percent of Ukrainians believed corruption was the most serious problem facing their country apart from the war.
Levko, the Kyiv judge, is passionate about serving the public and outspoken in particular about tackling domestic violence.
However, she said high-profile scandals, including the recent arrest of the former head of the Ukrainian Supreme Court for taking a US$2.7 million bribe, an accusation he denies, tarnish her profession and distract from the daily work Ukraine’s courts actually do.
“You know how people introduce me in intellectual circles? ‘This is Vira — she’s one of the decent judges,’” she said, lowering her voice for effect. “I’ve gotten used to it now.”
Trying to force a partnership between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and Intel Corp would be a wildly complex ordeal. Already, the reported request from the Trump administration for TSMC to take a controlling stake in Intel’s US factories is facing valid questions about feasibility from all sides. Washington would likely not support a foreign company operating Intel’s domestic factories, Reuters reported — just look at how that is going over in the steel sector. Meanwhile, many in Taiwan are concerned about the company being forced to transfer its bleeding-edge tech capabilities and give up its strategic advantage. This is especially
US President Donald Trump’s second administration has gotten off to a fast start with a blizzard of initiatives focused on domestic commitments made during his campaign. His tariff-based approach to re-ordering global trade in a manner more favorable to the United States appears to be in its infancy, but the significant scale and scope are undeniable. That said, while China looms largest on the list of national security challenges, to date we have heard little from the administration, bar the 10 percent tariffs directed at China, on specific priorities vis-a-vis China. The Congressional hearings for President Trump’s cabinet have, so far,
The US Department of State has removed the phrase “we do not support Taiwan independence” in its updated Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, which instead iterates that “we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the Strait.” This shows a tougher stance rejecting China’s false claims of sovereignty over Taiwan. Since switching formal diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China in 1979, the US government has continually indicated that it “does not support Taiwan independence.” The phrase was removed in 2022
US President Donald Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have each given their thoughts on Russia’s war with Ukraine. There are a few proponents of US skepticism in Taiwan taking advantage of developments to write articles claiming that the US would arbitrarily abandon Ukraine. The reality is that when one understands Trump’s negotiating habits, one sees that he brings up all variables of a situation prior to discussion, using broad negotiations to take charge. As for his ultimate goals and the aces up his sleeve, he wants to keep things vague for
RSS