Venice Commission criticizes scandalous Oct. 27 ruling, makes recommendations

A series of criticisms surfaced on Dec. 10 from the
Council of Europe regarding the scandalous Oct. 27 ruling
by Ukraine’s Constitutional Court that overturned much of the nation’s
IMF-sponsored anti-corruption infrastructure. The “pitiful” ruling needs to be
fulfilled by parliament, but only “in light of the general principles of the
Constitution, international standards and clear logic,” wrote on his Twitter
feed Gianni Buquicchio, the president of the European Commission for Democracy
through Law, or the Venice Commission. He called upon the need to preserve the
system of electronic declarations of assets and income by all state employees,
including judges.

In a separate statement, the Venice Commission
recommended that existing legislation be applied to review the declarations
submitted by judges, dismissing the need to create a special legal mechanism.
It recommended that the existing National Agency for Corruption
Prevention  – whose authority was undermined by the Oct. 27 ruling and has
yet to be restored – review the declarations and report them to the Higher
Qualifications Commission of Judges, after it is reformed and filled with new
personnel, as earlier outlined. The recommendations were made in response to an
inquiry submitted by the President’s Office, as reported by the
eurointegration.com.ua news site on Dec. 10.

The same day, the Venice Commission also published a
draft that recommended Ukraine’s parliament reform its legislation on the
Constitutional Court in response to the scandalous Oct. 27 ruling. This
includes outlining in greater detail the rules of the court’s functioning to
avoid similar problems, restricting its authority to those issues raised in
complaints filed by MPs, and requiring the court to justify each ruling in
which it determines a law to be unconstitutional. This legislation should
maintain the disciplinary procedure for judges. Conflicts of interest should be
more clearly defined, the commission said. The draft mentioned no
recommendations of dismissing judges, as had been pursued by President
Zelensky.

Zenon Zawada: We expect
parliament will adopt gradually legislation that is largely in line with the
Venice Commission’s recommendations, and President Zelensky will approve them,
given so much Western support is hanging in the balance. Already on Dec. 10, a
parliamentary commission endorsed a bill that would restore the authority of
the National Agency for Corruption Prevention. The news reports made no mention
on whether the Venice Commission offered a recommendation on whether
imprisonment would need to be preserved as a form of punishment for fraudulent
e-declarations.

These Venice Commission statements also serve to
put an end to any hope Zelensky may have had of dismissing the entire
Constitutional Court and installing loyal judges. The new legislation, as well
as the outraged public’s watchful eye, will make the current judges think twice
about pulling similar stunts in the future.