The Trap of «Permanent Judicial Reform» in Ukraine

Skepticism, expectations, hopes and disappointment. Is there a way out?

Judicial reforms in Ukraine have been under way for 30 years, and little has changed in substance. Three decades of reform have created a sense of a vicious circle in which the signs on the doors change, while cronyism, mutual cover-up and abuses of procedure persist, such as the artificial blocking of claims at the Kyiv District Administrative Court (KDAC).

Courts that misuse procedural rules to refuse to open proceedings, for example by applying limitation periods artificially or setting court fees at inflated amounts, are a widespread problem that lawyers often describe as an artificial restriction of access to justice. KDAC, citing an «enormous workload,» has often come under criticism for such practice.

Two cases at KDAC

Case No. 320/5085/24 (Judge I. M. Skrypka). First, the claim was not registered by the court for half a year. The hotline of the Unified Contact Center of the Judiciary explained this by the court’s workload and the reorganization of KDAC. According to the claimant, the court’s reception and registry lines are in practice almost impossible to get through to.

When the claim was finally registered, the court fee rates had changed. The ruling leaving the claim without movement, dated 5 February 2024, set a five-day period from receipt of the copy for remedying the deficiencies. According to the claimant, this ruling was never sent to him, and neither were the later documents, so he was deprived of access to justice. The court fee has not been refunded despite an application submitted through the Electronic Court system.

Whether this is negligence or something more serious is a question for the bodies that supervise judges.

Case No. 320/33815/26 (Judge M. Ya. Vistak). A similar case, in which, according to the claimant, limitation periods were applied artificially.

Why judges are rarely held accountable

The problem of ineffective control over judges is among the most acute in Ukraine’s judicial reform. Situations in which judges interpret legal norms arbitrarily (for example, manipulating time limits or court fees) often go unpunished because of systemic gaps in the oversight mechanisms.

Experts and human rights defenders point to several reasons why the system of influence on judges works poorly.

A huge backlog of complaints. For several years, consideration of disciplinary complaints against judges was effectively blocked, and tens of thousands of cases accumulated. Even after the process resumed, priority complaints (for example, against judges of the liquidated District Administrative Court of Kyiv, OASK) are examined very slowly. Often the limitation period for holding a judge accountable simply expires while the complaint waits its turn.

The Disciplinary Inspectors Service is still being established. The Service of Disciplinary Inspectors was created as an independent body under the High Council of Justice (HCJ) to address the problem of bias. Its formation, with the participation of international experts, was completed at the end of 2024. Because it has been operating for a relatively short time, it cannot process the huge volume of new and old complaints quickly, which reduces the speed of response to current violations.

Procedural loopholes and «escape through resignation.»

• Resignation instead of dismissal. A judge under investigation or facing a disciplinary case for gross violations can still submit a resignation request. The HCJ grants it, and the judge leaves office while keeping substantial lifetime payments from the state, instead of being dismissed.
• Legislative gaps. The law does not clearly distinguish between a «judicial error» (which is not punished) and «intentional neglect of duties» (which should lead to dismissal). Judges often explain missed deadlines or groundless refusals to open proceedings simply by their caseload.

How the system is being changed

A new bill on improving the effectiveness of judges’ disciplinary liability has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada. It provides for:

• closing the «escape through resignation» option for judges under investigation or disciplinary proceedings;
• giving complainants (citizens) an automatic right to appeal decisions of the disciplinary chambers if a judge is acquitted without justification;
• allowing materials from criminal proceedings of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Security Service (SBU) to be used as direct evidence in HCJ disciplinary cases.

Is there a way out?

Looking at the situation without emotion, a way out of this systemic crisis exists. It lies not in cosmetic changes to laws but in several fundamental steps that have proven effective elsewhere and are partly starting to work in Ukraine. To break out of the 30-year circle of ineffective reforms, Ukraine needs radical, technology-based solutions. The main goal is to remove the human factor where procedures can be manipulated, and to introduce real accountability for abuses.

The following measures could be introduced immediately.

1. Automatic case opening through a «digital filter.» Most abuses happen at the stage of opening proceedings, when a judge decides alone whether the court fee was paid correctly and whether the deadlines were met. The registration of claims should be fully automated through the Electronic Court system. The court fee should be calculated by an algorithm (a calculator) according to clear formulas. If the system confirms payment and automatically checks the submission date, the case should open automatically. The judge should receive the case at the stage of consideration on the merits, without the power to leave it «without movement» over technical errors.

2. Personal financial liability for judges in cases of clear violations. At present, judges risk nothing by issuing clearly unlawful rulings returning claims. Citizens lose months on appeals, while the judge simply continues to work. One option is a mechanism of recourse liability: if an appellate court overturns a ruling as manifestly unlawful (for example, the judge groundlessly demanded an additional fee), the citizen’s costs for a lawyer and for re-filing the claim could be recovered from the bonus fund or salary of that judge. This proposal is contested: international standards (including the Venice Commission) caution against personal liability of judges for judicial errors, except in cases of gross misconduct, so any such mechanism would need careful drafting.

3. Automatic grounds for dismissal in cases of systematic violations. The Disciplinary Inspectors Service under the HCJ is overloaded with complaints, and dismissal procedures take years. The law could establish automatic grounds for dismissal: for example, if within a year the appellate court overturns more than 3–5 rulings of one judge refusing access to justice (returning claims or leaving them without movement), this would be treated as a gross disciplinary offense.

4. Ending mutual cover-up within the HCJ. Over 30 years, internal control by judges over judges has proved ineffective. The involvement of independent international experts and representatives of civil society in the disciplinary chambers of the HCJ should be expanded and made permanent, with a decisive vote or a veto right in the consideration of citizens’ complaints against judges.

5. Written proceedings for simple cases. Courts often justify delays by power outages, the absence of parties or air-raid alerts. All typical administrative disputes (social payments, pensions, minor fines, technical decisions of state bodies) could be moved to written proceedings only, through the Electronic Court: no hearings and no summoning of parties, documents exchanged within one day, and a decision issued within a fixed deadline (for example, 10 days) without the possibility of postponement.

How an automated filter could work

The technical implementation of automatic case opening with the use of artificial intelligence and algorithms is a way to remove from judges the tool of artificially blocking claims at the first stage. The system would work as an automated digital filter within the Electronic Court platform.

1. Automatic verification of parties through state registers. Instead of a court clerk or judge checking data manually, the system does it in seconds. The claimant logs in to the Electronic Court through Diia.Signature or a qualified electronic signature. The algorithm retrieves data from the Unified State Register (for businesses) or the Demographic Register (for citizens), checking the legal capacity of the parties and the correctness of the defendant’s details (for example, the tax service or the Pension Fund).

2. A smart court fee calculator. The system classifies the category of dispute (for example, «appeal against actions of the tax service» is a non-pecuniary claim), calculates the exact fee based on the current subsistence minimum, and allows payment in one click through Diia or a bank. The system immediately matches the unique receipt code against the Treasury database. If the system confirms that the fee was paid correctly, the judge may not dispute it.

3. Automated analysis of filing deadlines. This is the most complex stage, because deadlines may depend on the date when the person learned of the violation of their rights. The claimant fills in a mandatory field («the date on which the violation became known») and uploads a supporting document (for example, a decision of a state body with the date of the outgoing letter). A text-recognition (OCR) model reads the date from the document and compares it with the filing date. If the filing falls within the statutory six-month period for administrative cases, the system automatically marks «deadline met.» If not, it offers a template of reasons for the delay and a motion to restore the deadline.

4. Automatic registration and case number. If all three filters are passed (identity established, fee paid, deadline verified), the system generates a ruling opening proceedings in a standard template, assigns a unique number and distributes the case to a judge through a random selection system. The judge receives a case that must be considered on the merits. The option to «leave without movement» at this stage would be technically blocked.

Risks to consider

• Algorithm errors. If the system wrongly rejects a claim, the citizen must keep the right to send the case for manual verification by an on-duty operator of the State Judicial Administration or to challenge the technical failure.
• Resistance within the system. Part of the judicial community may try to block automation, arguing that «a computer cannot replace the independence of a judge.» Implementation should therefore go through direct amendments to the procedural codes (the Code of Administrative Procedure and the Civil Procedure Code), which would state clearly that the technical check of a claim is performed solely by the information system.

Estonia: what is true and what is a myth

Estonia is often cited in discussions of artificial intelligence in the judiciary, because it has combined the digitalization of public services with the court process more thoroughly than most countries. Here it is important to separate the facts from the myth.

In 2019, media reports circulated that Estonia was developing a «robot judge» that would decide small claims of up to €7,000. The Estonian Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs has officially stated that this is not the case: the state has no projects or plans to develop artificial intelligence that would issue independent court decisions in place of human judges. According to the ministry, the earlier reports were misinterpreted by the media.

What Estonia does use is more modest:

• Automation of routine procedures. Instead of AI judges, Estonian courts use algorithms for automated payment orders in civil cases, along with other ICT optimization of case handling.
• Auxiliary machine-learning tools. Machine learning is applied only to supporting tasks, such as transcribing court hearings (the Salme system) and automatically anonymizing personal data in court decisions (Krat).

Any use of AI in the administration of justice in the EU is also classified under the EU Artificial Intelligence Act as a high-risk application, which requires strict accountability and human oversight.

For Ukraine, the lesson is not that a machine can replace a judge. It is that digital tools can take over routine procedural steps, such as registering claims, calculating fees and checking deadlines, while decisions on the merits remain with a human judge, and any automated action can be reviewed by a person on appeal. This is the model proposed in this article.

What legal changes are needed in Ukraine

Any attempt to automate even the stage of opening cases or calculating court fees would currently be blocked by the existing procedural codes. To legalize a system of automatic rulings, the Verkhovna Rada would need to adopt a package of amendments to the Code of Administrative Procedure and other laws.

1. Redefining «court» and «judge.» Under the Constitution and the Code, justice is administered exclusively by human judges, and any automatic action could be treated as «interference with the automated court system.» The Code should introduce the concept of an «automated pre-trial filter» or «simplified algorithmic proceedings,» stating that technical rulings (opening proceedings, determining the court fee, recording deadlines) may be issued by the software system of the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System without the physical signature of a judge.

2. Abolishing the ruling «leaving without movement» in algorithmic cases. This is the ruling that is most often misused to demand additional fees or contrived documents. For typical cases (for example, claims against the Pension Fund or appeals against fines), the Code should state that the automatic calculation is final. If the state calculator in the Electronic Court calculated the fee and the payment went through, the judge may not demand other amounts.

3. Legalizing digital evidence and OCR technologies. Currently, a judge assesses evidence «according to their inner conviction.» The Code should provide for mandatory use of OCR: if the system scans a postmark or the date of a digital document and confirms that the six-month deadline was met, this is recognized as a legal fact that does not require additional subjective approval.

4. An «appeal against the algorithm.» A new article should guarantee citizens the right to a free and fast review of an automatic decision by a human. If the claimant disagrees with how the system calculated a deadline or a fee, they can send a complaint to the court’s chairperson or the on-duty judge, who must check for a program error within 24 hours.

Without such changes, any attempt to introduce AI will run into the argument that it violates the independence of the courts.

What is different this time: pressure from the EU

Despite the skepticism, the current stage of reform differs from the previous 30 years in one respect: strong pressure from the EU and financial indicators. Ukraine no longer receives loans and grants simply on promises. For example, adopting strict rules for checking judges’ integrity declarations is a direct condition for receiving multibillion-euro assistance. The cleanup of the system is slow, but it now has clear deadlines.

The EU’s requirements for further reform of the judiciary and the rule of law are a key condition for Ukraine’s integration, since they are part of negotiating Cluster 1, «Fundamentals.» They directly affect the disbursement of financial aid. Brussels focuses on several areas.

Vetting and cleansing of the judiciary

• Integrity declarations. The EU demanded improvement of the procedure for checking judges’ integrity declarations, with an extended review period and clear legal consequences for violations. The relevant law (No. 13165-2) was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in summer 2026, which unblocked significant financial tranches.
• Qualification assessment. A full, transparent and uninterrupted qualification assessment of the judiciary is expected, in order to restore trust in the system.

Capacity and quorum of judicial governance bodies

• The HCJ and the High Qualification Commission of Judges. Partners stress the importance of appointing, without delay, members of the HCJ and the High Qualification Commission who have been vetted with the participation of international experts. Quorum problems (including those related to the lawyers’ quota) must be fully resolved.
• The Constitutional Court. The EU expects vacancies on the Constitutional Court to be filled without interruption under the updated competitive selection procedure.

Related institutions (prosecution and the bar)

• Prosecution. Brussels insists on changing the procedures for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General in line with European practice and the recommendations of the Venice Commission, with transparent competitions.
• The bar. Under the Rule of Law Roadmap, Ukraine must harmonize its legislation on legal practice, reform the bodies of lawyers’ self-governance (including open competitions) and ensure their transparency.

Criminal justice and anti-corruption

• Criminal Procedure Code. The criminal process must be reformed and NABU must be given access to independent and impartial forensic examinations.
• The anti-corruption system. Strengthening the autonomy of NABU, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) and the High Anti-Corruption Court remains a constant priority in the European Commission’s monitoring reports.

Brussels emphasizes that progress is assessed not by the number of laws adopted but by the real results of their implementation.

Who pays for judicial reform

There is no single official figure for the total funding of judicial reform over the years, because international assistance comes as separate targeted grants, expert support programs and macro-financial packages that cannot be added into one balance. According to expert estimates and media monitoring, direct grant support for reform of the judiciary and the justice sector in recent years is in the range of €80–120 million. This should be distinguished from large credit and macro-financial programs tied to reforms.

Institutional grants (civil society and expert support). During the active phase of reforms (especially 2019–2024), about €80–120 million was raised through international grants for reforming the judiciary and prosecution. These funds went to expert support and drafting of legislation, civil monitoring of courts (for example, projects of the DEJURE Foundation and other organizations), and support for the work of the Public Integrity Council.

«Money for reforms» (macro-financial assistance). The largest sums go not directly to courts but to the state budget after specific steps in judicial reform are completed.

• EU Ukraine Facility. Within the overall package, certain tranches are tied to judicial reform indicators. For example, fulfilling one of the steps (updating the check of judges’ integrity declarations) opens a payment of €286 million. Delays in adopting quality laws on the verification of integrity declarations and on digitalizing enforcement proceedings have temporarily cost Ukraine access to tranches of around €700 million.
• The Ukraine Reform, Recovery and Reconstruction Trust Fund (URTF), administered by the World Bank, has mobilized more than USD 2.8 billion in donor contributions since 2022, distributed across all public sector reforms, including institutional support for justice bodies.

Donor projects. International donors do not finance the operating costs of courts (salaries, repairs). They fund expert support, digitalization and civil society involvement.

• USAID. The best known and longest-running project is «Justice for All,» a continuation of earlier programs («New Justice»). USAID’s democracy and governance portfolio in Ukraine was well over USD 1 billion at the end of 2024. In the judicial area, it funded IT solutions for e-justice, expert assessment and selection of candidates to the HCJ and the High Qualification Commission, and surveys on public trust in courts. (Note that US assistance changed substantially in 2025.)
• The Council of Europe. Funding comes under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine. Projects (for example, on ensuring effective protection of the right to a fair trial) have smaller budgets, typically €1.5–3 million each, and cover expert review of draft laws for compliance with Council of Europe and Venice Commission standards, and training of Ukrainian judges in applying European Court of Human Rights case law.

The state budget. The Ukrainian state budget maintains the judiciary on its own, but chronically underfunds it. According to the OECD and the HCJ, state funding covered only part of courts’ operating needs: 63.4% in 2022, 51.4% in 2023, 57% in 2024 and about 61% in 2025. The state often covers the shortfall with over-collected court fees (in 2025, receipts exceeded the plan by 59%), which are directed to the basic remuneration of judges. A separate budget item is payments in cases lost in Strasbourg: in 2025, UAH 183.8 million was paid to execute 164 judgments of the European Court of Human Rights against Ukraine.

EU and IMF requirements. This is the classic «money for reforms» tool, and the financing of the state budget directly depends on meeting judicial benchmarks.

• The EU (the €50 billion Ukraine Facility and the €90 billion support program). Judicial reform is one of the toughest blocks. Failure to meet indicators suspends or reduces payments. Key requirements: legislative regulation and launch of the verification of judges’ integrity declarations; filling at least 20% of vacancies in the judicial system; adopting a law on the new High Administrative Court (to replace the liquidated OASK); reform of access to digital justice; and expansion of the staff of the High Anti-Corruption Court.
• The IMF (Extended Fund Facility). The Fund’s judicial requirements are usually synchronized with the EU’s but have the status of structural benchmarks, failure to meet which threatens the suspension of lending. They include full cleansing and transparent work of the HCJ and the High Qualification Commission; strengthening the institutional independence and powers of SAPO; and proper financial control over politically exposed persons, with anti-corruption steps integrated into the tax and financial system.

Ukraine is not unique

International experience shows that Ukraine is not alone in a long, systemic crisis of justice. Many countries in Eastern Europe, Latin America and the post-Soviet space fell into a «trap of permanent judicial reform» after regime change or independence, with reforms lasting decades without a radical improvement in public trust.

Albania: radical cleansing that paralyzed the system. Albania has been trying to reform its courts since the early 1990s, after the fall of the communist regime. For some 25 years the reforms were largely cosmetic. In 2016, under strong pressure from the EU and the US, the country launched an unprecedented reform: comprehensive vetting of all judges and prosecutors. Of those assessed, a majority (more than 60% by most counts) either failed or resigned. This led to a severe shortage of personnel: the Constitutional and Supreme Courts were paralyzed for several years because there was no one to staff them. Even today the courts are overloaded and proceedings drag on for years.

Guatemala: international missions against a «judicial mafia.» After the civil war, Guatemala signed peace accords in 1996 and has been reforming its criminal and judicial systems ever since. Traditional elites and criminal networks controlled the selection of judges for decades. To break the circle, the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) was created in 2006 and successfully investigated corruption among senior officials and judges. When it approached the highest levels of power, the president shut it down in 2019 and expelled the international experts. Today, the Guatemalan judiciary is again largely under the control of political clans, and independent judges and prosecutors are persecuted or forced to leave the country.

Bulgaria and Romania: 30 years under EU monitoring. Both countries began reforms after 1989 and joined the EU in 2007 «in advance,» under a commitment to complete judicial reform within the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM). In Bulgaria, reform has lasted more than three decades. The main problem was the uncontrolled power of the Prosecutor General and the Supreme Judicial Council, where mutual cover-up prevailed. In Romania, reforms went further thanks to the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) led by Laura Kövesi, but politicians later tried to roll them back through legislative changes. Although the European Commission has formally closed monitoring for both countries, trust in the courts remains low and political influence over judicial appointments has not been fully eliminated.

Why countries with effective courts rarely needed outside help

Countries with effective judicial systems have, as a rule, built their institutions on centuries of evolutionary development, a strong political culture and financial independence, and for them the judiciary is not a field for «experiments and reforms» but a fundamental pillar of statehood financed by taxpayers. (Of course, such countries have also received support, such as EU judicial programs for newer member states, but their basic systems did not depend on it.) Their effectiveness rests on five pillars.

1. Historical continuity and reputation. In common-law countries (the UK, the US) and in established continental systems (Germany, France), courts have developed continuously for centuries. There is less need for «purifying» bodies such as the HCJ, since self-regulation and reputation operate. Becoming a judge in Britain or the US is the peak of a career for the most respected lawyers and scholars, and a person with a doubtful reputation will not pass the filter of professional selection.
2. Protected, stable internal funding. In many US states and EU countries, the judiciary forms its own budget, and parliament merely approves it. This rules out situations in which courts lack money for paper or stamps, as often happens in Ukraine. Judges receive high pay and strong pension and social guarantees, so risking them for a bribe makes little sense.
3. Digitalization as an internal investment. Effective countries invest heavily in digital courts on their own, because it reduces state costs in the long run. In Singapore, regarded as a leader in judicial efficiency, the eLitigation system was created with state funds as part of an economic development strategy: a fast court attracts investment that more than covers its cost.
4. Developed alternatives to litigation. Courts in the US and the EU are less burdened with small disputes because other tools work effectively. Litigation is expensive for the parties, so businesses and citizens often settle without a judge, through mediation, arbitration or settlement agreements, and courts can focus on complex and important cases.
5. Institutional balance. In developed democracies, the executive and the legislature do not try to subordinate the courts. The judiciary has real power to overturn a government decision or a law (the US Supreme Court, the German Constitutional Court), and no politician questions that right.

Why Ukraine cannot simply do the same now. The historical chain of trust was broken by the Soviet past, when the court was only a punitive arm of the party. After 1991 the system was preserved as it was, which led to a deep crisis of trust (at times only 5–10% of the population trusted the courts). Outside funding and international experts are a forced «artificial stimulant,» a crisis-management tool meant to break the mutual cover-up inside the system. Other countries can do without it because their «immunity» (reputation, traditions, financial independence) was built over generations.

Two priorities: budget autonomy and mediation

Both approaches matter, but at the current historical moment the most useful first step for Ukraine is an autonomous judicial budget. Without a financial and institutional foundation, any attempt to introduce alternative dispute resolution will remain a cosmetic repair of a half-ruined building.

Priority 1: an autonomous budget. In Ukraine, the executive and legislative branches have historically used the budget as an instrument of hidden pressure on courts. When the Ministry of Finance or parliament can cut funding for court staff at their discretion (as has been happening for years, with only 51–61% of real needs covered in 2023–2025), the independence of justice becomes a formality. A model in which the judiciary (through the HCJ) prepares its own budget estimate, and parliament cannot reduce it without substantial grounds, would give Ukraine:

1. A real separation of powers. Judges would no longer be petitioners in the offices of officials.
2. A solution to the staffing shortage. Adequate funding would allow raising the pay of court staff (secretaries, assistants), who are now leaving en masse because of tiny salaries, which paralyzes the work of court registries.
3. Its own digitalization. Courts could finance the Electronic Court and online dispute resolution tools themselves, without waiting for the next donor grant.

Priority 2: mediation. Developing mediation and pre-trial settlement is a sound way to relieve the system. In the US and Britain, only a small share of disputes reaches court. In Ukraine, however, mediation runs into two obstacles:

• Low legal culture. Businesses and citizens often do not trust agreements unless they are backed by a court decision with a seal and the threat of enforcement by a state officer.
• The state as the main litigant. A large part of the courts’ workload consists of disputes between citizens and the Pension Fund, or between businesses and the tax authorities. State bodies in Ukraine are in practice barred from compromise or mediation, and are obliged to litigate to the last instance, even in cases they are certain to lose.

Conclusion

If reform is limited to changing signs, writing new codes or renaming courts, it is unlikely to succeed. The key obstacle is the system of mutual cover-up within the judiciary (where judges select judges), together with the reluctance of political elites to give up control over courts that serve as a convenient instrument in political struggle.

Last Updated on 07.10.2026 by iskova