Vision

Vision

Ukraine is a new democratic state with a complicated historical, political, and legal background. The capacity to uphold and ensure Democracy, Rule of Law, and independent Judiciary in Ukraine through the challenging times of War may give a new impulse for strengthening and consolidating pan-European values and commitments and therefore security and resilience of democratic institutions.

Consistent and systemic fostering independence of the judiciary, upholding the rule of law, ensuring transparency and accountability, enhancing efficiency and accessibility, promoting professionalism and training, cooperating with CoE and EU institutions, engaging the public, and seeking international support and monitoring - are the pillars collectively contribute to building a judiciary that inspires public trust, upholds democratic values, and advances Ukraine's integration into the European community.

Strategy

1. Support the Ukrainian judiciary's best practices and positive developments by providing relevant and practical research outputs and facilitating discussions.
   
2. Support the Ukrainian state policies in capacity building of the judiciary and strengthening of its independence by providing expertise in relevant areas.
3. Strengthen the BIICL impact in building the judiciary diplomacy within the UK-Ukraine dialog.
4. Building a Judiciary Network by increasing engagement with associations of judges and other stakeholders through different stages of the research process.
5. Increase the potential of the BIICL in its strategic aim to ensure that legal institutions provide fair and impartial access to justice through the ad-hoc Forum of Judiciary established as one of the research outputs.

Research summary

Our research will contribute to a critical study of Ukraine's judicial system from a historical (from 1991 - to date) and legal perspective. It will examine key features including judicial reforms, independence of the judiciary with the rule of law framework, anti-corruption measures, issues of efficiency and accountability, and harmonisation with the Council of Europe and EU Standards. No research of this nature or scope has ever been undertaken about the Ukrainian judicial system, making this study's comprehensive and comparative nature both innovative and visionary. The research will generate insights and recommendations that can contribute to judicial reform efforts in Ukraine and alignment with EU and the CoE standards. Project outputs will provide a comprehensive and balanced picture of the judiciary in Ukraine, thus becoming an essential source for academics, practitioners, and decision-makers in Ukraine, the UK, the EU, and beyond.

Geographical focus

In general geographical focus of the research is a pan-European legal area with a focus on the EU members and candidate states. Specific attention will be focused on comparative analyses of the judicial reforms in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, as well as Balkan states that are candidate members of the EU.