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Juridicial System

According to the Constitution, justice in Ukraine is administered solely by courts. The delegation of court functions, as well as their usurpation by other bodies and officials is not allowed. Courts have jurisdiction over all legal relations, which develop in the state. The Constitution points out that the establishment of extraordinary and special courts is prohibited.

The general structure of the judicial system is stipulated in Article 124 of the Constitution of Ukraine, according to which the justice is administered by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and by courts of general jurisdiction.

The courts of general jurisdiction administer justice in the form of civil, commercial, administrative and criminal legislation. The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is a special judicial body of constitutional control.

Justice is administered by professional judges and, in cases overseen by the law, by people’s assessors and juries. The independence of judges is guaranteed by their immunity and their election by the Supreme Rada permanently after their first appointment to the position of professional judge by the President of Ukraine for a five-year term.

The judicial system of Ukraine consists of four levels of courts of general jurisdiction, as follows:

Local courts of general jurisdiction (combining criminal and civil jurisdiction) consisting of:

- district, urban district and town courts;

- regional courts;

- city courts in Kyiv and Sevastopol;

- administrative local courts.

Appeals courts, consisting of:

- appeals court of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea;

- regional appeals courts;

- appeals courts of the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol;

- appeals court of the Ukrainian Navy;

- regional military appeals courts;

- economic appeals courts (known also as arbitration courts);

- administrative appeals courts.

High courts with specialized jurisdiction:

- The Appeals Court of Ukraine, covering civil, criminal and military cases;

- The High Administrative Court of Ukraine, covering administrative cases;

- The High Arbitration Court of Ukraine, covering economic and commercial cases;

- The Supreme Court, covering all cases.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine is a special body with authority to assess whether legislative acts are in line with the Constitution of Ukraine.

The courts enjoy legal, financial and constitutional freedom guaranteed by measures adopted in Ukrainian law in 2002. Judges are protected from dismissal (except in instances of gross misconduct). Senior judges are nominated by parliament and are appointed by presidential decree for a period of five years, after which Ukraine's Supreme Council confirms them for life in an attempt to insulate them from politics. Although there are still problems with the performance of the system, it is considered to have improved since Ukraine's independence in 1991. The Supreme Court is regarded as being an independent and impartial body and has ruled against the Ukrainian government on several occasions.

Historical Note

Ukraine's judicial system was inherited from the Soviet Union and the former Ukrainian SSR. It had many of the problems which marred Soviet justice, and most notably a corrupt and politicised judiciary.

The Prosecutor-General's Office exerted undue influence and judges often would not dare to rule against state prosecutors. Those who ruled against the state prosecutors faced disciplinary actions. For example when a Kyiv court ruled for opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko, the presiding judge was himself prosecuted. The courts were not even independent from each other, and it was commonplace for trial court judges to call the higher courts and ask how to decide a case. Courts were underfunded with little money or resources. It was not uncommon for cases to be heard in a small, cramped courtroom with the electricity cut off while prisoners were unable to attend because there was not transport from jails to courtrooms.

Reformers highlighted the state of the judiciary as a key problem in the early 1990s and established a number of programmes to improve the performance of the judiciary. A Ukraine-Ohio Rule of Law Program was established in 1994 which brought together lawyers and judges from the American state of Ohio, including members of the Ohio Supreme Court, with their Ukrainian counterparts. The United States Agency for International Development supported these and other initiatives, which were also backed by European governments and international organisations.

These efforts proved controversial among some of the judicial old guard, but a band of reformist judges - dubbed the "judicial opposition" – and increasingly gained support from reformers in local administrations who pushed for an end to judicial corruption. Judges were indicted en masse in Dnipropetrovsk in the early 1990s, and later judges from the Mykolayiv city court and the Moskovskyy district court of Kiev were put on trial for corruption.

Major changes were made to the judicial system when the law "On the court system" was passed on 7 February 2002, creating a new level of judiciary and enacting institutional safeguards to insulate judges from political pressure.