New Rules for Selecting Members of the HQCJ and the HCJ: Analysis of Draft Law No. 16018

On September 3, 2026, Members of Parliament Volodymyr Vatras, Ivan Kalaur, and Mykola Stefanchuk registered Draft Law No. 16018 in the Verkhovna Rada. It would amend the Law of Ukraine on the Judiciary and the Status of Judges and certain other laws of Ukraine to improve the competitive procedures for the positions of member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine and member of the High Council of Justice. On September 10, 2026, the government registered alternative Draft Law No. 16018-1. 

The main reason for the changes is the upcoming renewal of the HQCJ: in June 2027, the terms of office of 15 of its 16 members expire. Just as important, Ukraine’s financing depends on the entry into force of these amendments, which are meant to extend the participation of international experts in the selection of HQCJ and HCJ members. Formal adoption of the law is not enough, however. The amendments must be developed in close dialogue with the Venice Commission.

For this reason, somewhat earlier, in July 2026, former Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Taras Kachka submitted to the Venice Commission the first draft of the alternative bill, which differs somewhat from the version later registered as No. 16018-1. This Council of Europe body has since published its opinion, which was endorsed at the Venice Commission’s plenary session.

Nevertheless, on September 30, 2026, the parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy decided to reject the government’s alternative Draft Law No. 16018-1. Instead, it recommends that the Verkhovna Rada adopt Draft Law No. 16018 at first reading as a basis, with revisions before the second reading that take into account the provisions of alternative Draft Law No. 16018-1 and the Venice Commission’s opinion.

Key findings

• The main draft law does not resolve the question of the long-term participation of international experts. For the HQCJ, this participation effectively ends after the upcoming two-year term of the second composition of the Selection Commission. Meanwhile, the powers of the first composition of the Ethics Council, which is involved in selecting HCJ members and also includes international experts, expire in November 2027.
• The current version of the main draft law diminishes the role of international experts in assessing the professional competence of HQCJ candidates: the relevant decision will be made by a simple majority, regardless of whether a given vote belongs to an international or a national expert. It will also create uncertainty, as the authors removed the rule that, in a 3–3 tie, the decision supported by at least two international members prevails.
• At the same time, the main draft law moves some procedures for forming the HQCJ and the HCJ in the right direction. For both bodies, it will allow a single competition to be held for several vacancies at once and will clearly separate formal admission, special vetting, and the assessment of integrity and of professional competence. It will also preserve the international component in the Selection Commission for HQCJ members for another two years. 

What do we propose?

On the procedure for selecting HQCJ members:

• extend the participation of members nominated by international partners not only to the second but also to at least the third composition of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, refrain from introducing a quota for Ukrainian citizens in it, and preserve its ability to engage assistants;
• leave unchanged the current voting procedure of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, with the decisive vote of international experts;
• provide for a first stage at which candidates for HQCJ membership undergo a standardized assessment of their professional knowledge and analytical skills through testing and/or a practical assignment; assess the other components of professional competence during a structured interview; and conduct the integrity check only for candidates who have passed the first stage.

On the procedure for selecting HCJ members:

• extend the participation of international experts to at least the second composition of the Ethics Council;
• establish uniform rules for assessing the professional competence of HCJ candidates for congresses, conferences, and parliamentary committees: common criteria, indicators, and a requirement to give reasons for decisions;
• allow HCJ candidates to submit documents to the parliamentary committee electronically, and make the admission criteria uniform for all bodies. 

How do things stand now?

At present, the formation of the HQCJ does not involve three international experts, because the term of office of the first composition of the Selection Commission was two years and expired in June 2025. 

In addition, the Selection Commission itself reviews candidates’ documents and compiles the list of persons admitted to the interview. A decision of the Selection Commission is adopted if four members vote for it, including at least two international members.

In the formation of the HCJ, international members participate in the first composition of the Ethics Council only for a six-year term, which ends in November 2027. The Ethics Council determines whether candidates meet the criteria of professional ethics and integrity, while the body that nominated the candidate checks compliance with the criterion of professional competence. The HCJ Secretariat has the power to accept documents from, and admit to the competition, candidates for the High Council of Justice who are elected by congresses or a conference. 

What does the main draft law propose?

The main draft law proposes two major sets of changes: one concerning the selection of HQCJ members and one concerning the selection of HCJ members.

For the selection of HQCJ members, it proposes the following changes.

• A competition may be held simultaneously for all vacant HQCJ positions if there is more than one vacancy. The HCJ must announce it no later than three months before the end of the term of office of the relevant HQCJ member, or within ten days after the early termination of that member’s powers or the member’s dismissal.
• The competition is conducted by the second composition of the Selection Commission, which includes three members nominated by international and foreign organizations. At least one of these three members must be a Ukrainian citizen. The Commission’s term of office is two years, after which it will be formed under the general rules of Article 95-1 of the Law of Ukraine on the Judiciary and the Status of Judges.
• The High Council of Justice, rather than the Selection Commission, will review the documents submitted by candidates for HQCJ membership and decide whether to admit them to the competition.
• The competition will consist of three separate stages, each handled by a different body. First, the HCJ will check whether the candidate and the candidate’s documents meet the statutory requirements. Next, the HCJ Secretariat will organize special vetting. Finally, the Selection Commission will determine whether the candidate meets the integrity criterion and, separately, the professional competence criterion.

• Only if there are reasonable doubts about a candidate’s integrity will the Selection Commission be able either to hold an interview or to request written explanations from the candidate for HQCJ membership. To assess compliance with the professional competence criterion, the Selection Commission will hold only an interview.
• The Selection Commission will make decisions by a simple majority, without a mandatory quota of two votes from international experts, and a tie vote will remain unresolved.
• The HCJ must receive at least two recommended candidates per vacancy. For positions to be filled by judges or retired judges, at least two candidates for the relevant vacancy must also belong to this category.

For the selection of HCJ members, it proposes the following changes. 

• The draft law sets a uniform starting point of the competitive procedure for the various bodies that elect HCJ members: no later than six months before the end of an HCJ member’s term of office, or within 14 days after the early termination of that member’s powers. It will also be possible to hold a single competition for several vacancies at once.
• The acceptance of documents and the initial screening of candidates will pass from the HCJ to the body that convenes the relevant congress or conference. That body will also interview the candidates who have passed special vetting and been recommended by the Ethics Council, in order to assess their professional competence.
• The Ethics Council will continue to assess professional ethics and integrity, and it will pass on to the electing body not only its opinions and the list of recommended persons, but also the documents and information concerning them.
• For the Verkhovna Rada, the draft law extends the deadline for submitting documents from 25 to 30 days and explicitly allows minor errors and inaccuracies to be corrected. 
• Instead of holding a “preliminary discussion,” the parliamentary committee will conduct full-fledged interviews with candidates to assess their professional competence, and the Verkhovna Rada will receive a broader package of materials on each candidate.

The government’s alternative Draft Law No. 16018-1, rejected by the Committee on Legal Policy, is virtually identical to the main one, except that the government proposed partially preserving the decisive vote of international members when assessing the integrity of HQCJ candidates: such a decision would have required four votes, at least two of them from international members. For professional competence, however, a simple majority would have sufficed.

In addition, the government’s draft did require the Selection Commission for HQCJ members to hold an integrity interview with every candidate, with no option to rely on written explanations instead and no precondition of reasonable doubts.

What should be improved?

Although the main draft law contains a number of useful procedural changes, it creates significant risks for the effectiveness of the competitions and for the role of the international component.

The draft law’s greatest flaw is that it waters down the role of international experts in the competitive selection of HQCJ and HCJ members. Taken individually, each change may not raise serious concerns. Taken together, however, they produce a vulnerable competitive procedure in which the international component loses its key advantage: independence and objectivity. Moreover, the draft law contains procedural changes that could significantly reduce the effectiveness of the selection. 

To eliminate all these risks, we offer the following recommendations for improving this legislative act. The Venice Commission has also endorsed some of these concerns about the changes to the HQCJ and HCJ selection procedures.

1. The full participation of international members in the Selection Commission for HQCJ members and in the Ethics Council for selecting HCJ members should last longer

Under the logic of the draft law, this competition for HQCJ members will be the last one conducted with international experts. Afterwards, once the two-year term of the second composition of the Selection Commission ends, it will consist of persons delegated by the judicial, prosecutorial, legal, and academic communities in accordance with Article 95-1 of the Law on the Judiciary.

Something similar, or even worse, will happen to the HCJ competition. The first composition of the Ethics Council for forming the HCJ, with the participation of foreign experts, was established on November 9, 2021, and its members serve a six-year term. As a result, a year from now, in 2027, the first composition of the Ethics Council will lose its powers, and its next composition will be formed from the judicial, prosecutorial, legal, and academic communities.

Regrettably, the draft law does not propose extending the participation of international experts in forming the HCJ and the HQCJ any further, even though such selection models have proven genuinely effective for top positions in Ukraine.

The proposal that at least one of the three international experts be Ukrainian is also concerning. Currently, nothing prevents or prohibits international partners from recommending Ukrainian citizens to commissions in such competitions. The inclusion of a Ukrainian citizen is therefore not problematic in itself, but it becomes a sensitive issue if the international component loses its decisive vote at every stage of the assessment.

Just as importantly, the draft law removes the Selection Commission’s specific power to engage assistants at the request of its members. Such assistance is needed to verify information about candidates and to organize the Commission’s work.

In its urgent opinion, the Venice Commission also supported a second composition of the Selection Commission with the participation of international experts. It reiterated that the involvement of international experts, as an exceptional temporary measure, should continue until the intended result is achieved. The opinion also criticized the mandatory quota for a Ukrainian citizen and the lack of an option to engage assistants.

Therefore, the participation of international experts should be extended for another six years, at least for the second composition of the Ethics Council. Likewise, the participation of members nominated by international and foreign organizations should be extended not only to the second but also to at least the third composition of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, without introducing a quota for Ukrainian citizens and while preserving the Commission’s ability to engage assistants.

2. The votes of international experts in the selection of HQCJ members should remain decisive

The draft law proposes to neutralize the special role of international experts on the Selection Commission for HQCJ members. 

Currently, to decide that a candidate meets the criteria of integrity and professional competence, the Selection Commission must vote with four votes, at least two of which come from international experts.

The main draft law proposes to abolish this advantage of international experts’ votes entirely, so that the Selection Commission for HQCJ members would decide by a simple majority.

The Cabinet of Ministers’ proposals in the alternative draft law also weakened the role of international members’ votes by setting separate voting rules for the integrity criterion and the professional competence criterion:

• to find that a candidate meets the integrity criterion, four votes would be required, at least two of them from international members;
• to find that a candidate meets the professional competence criterion, four votes would be required, at least one of them from international members.

Moreover, both draft laws remove the special mechanism for breaking a tie. As a result, a 3–3 vote could block a decision, whereas under the current model for the first composition of the Selection Commission, the decision supported by at least two international members prevails in such a case.

Like us, the Venice Commission recommends not changing the weight of the votes and retaining the decisive vote of international experts in assessing both criteria: integrity and professional competence.

Weakening the decisive vote of international members will only increase the risk of interference with the selection results. Therefore, the current voting procedure of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, with the decisive vote of international experts, should remain unchanged.

3. Integrity interviews for HQCJ candidates should be mandatory

Main Draft Law No. 16018, supported by the parliamentary committee, proposes a dangerous provision that would allow candidates for HQCJ membership who lack integrity to pass the integrity filter without proper verification and assessment.

The draft law provides that an integrity interview will be held only if there are reasonable doubts about the candidate’s integrity, and that even where such reasonable doubts exist, the Commission may limit itself to sending requests asking the candidate to explain the suspicious circumstances.

This approach to vetting candidates’ integrity is extremely risky, as it will become much harder to screen all candidates properly. Consequently, the risk that members lacking integrity will join the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine will grow.

In a similar selection of judges for the High Anti-Corruption Court, the Public Council of International Experts, despite having the same option to hold interviews selectively, decided to invite all candidates to interviews. As a result, 68% of the participants failed to convince the experts of their integrity.

Moreover, the alternative government draft law contains this very proposal to hold integrity interviews with all HQCJ candidates under any circumstances. We hope that, when revising the main draft law for the second reading, the committee will incorporate this positive proposal from the alternative draft.

Therefore, the Selection Commission for HQCJ members should be required to hold integrity interviews with every candidate, without exception.

4. A standardized assessment of professional knowledge should precede the integrity check

The proposal to assess candidates in an order where integrity is checked first and professionalism only afterwards remains unexplained.

The Selection Commission spends far more time, effort, and resources on checking a candidate’s integrity, since this requires reviewing a vast amount of public and non-public data, analyzing it, and assessing every suspicious fact.

To save resources, the first stage should consist of standardized testing of professional knowledge and analytical skills and/or a practical assignment. This would make it possible to determine the pool of candidates who will undergo the resource-intensive integrity check. Other components of professional competence that the standardized assignment does not cover should be assessed during a structured interview.

The Venice Commission takes the same approach: if the interview is retained as the sole tool for assessing professional competence, it must be conducted consistently, on the basis of criteria and a structure published in advance, while a written or practical component would increase objectivity.

Therefore, the first stage should provide for a standardized assessment of professional knowledge and analytical skills through testing and/or a practical assignment, and the other components of professional competence should be assessed during a structured interview. The integrity check should be conducted for candidates who have passed the first stage.

5. Assessing the professional competence of HCJ candidates requires consistent rules

Today, in the competitive selection of HCJ members, compliance with the criteria of ethics and integrity is determined by the Ethics Council, which includes international experts. Professional competence, in turn, is formally checked by the body that nominated the candidate.

The draft law proposes to explicitly grant the body that convenes the relevant congress or conference the power to hold a full-fledged interview with candidates to assess their professional competence. The relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada receives a similar function with respect to candidates from Parliament.

However, the text of the draft law does not set out common criteria, indicators, or a methodology for this assessment. As a result, each of the bodies that form the HCJ may apply the same statutory requirement of professional competence differently. Furthermore, unlike the HQCJ competition, where the decision on professional competence is expressly required to be reasoned, the draft law does not explicitly establish a similar requirement for the bodies that assess HCJ candidates.

The Venice Commission expressly recommends that Parliament not transfer the assessment of professional competence to these bodies. However, if the interviews are nonetheless retained, the law should clearly state that they are not eliminatory.

Therefore, consistent rules for assessing candidates’ professional competence should be established for congresses, conferences, and parliamentary committees: common criteria, indicators, and a requirement to give reasons for decisions.

6. The procedure for admitting HCJ candidates needs to be unified

The draft law proposes to change the body that admits candidates to the competition for HCJ membership. Currently, the High Council of Justice itself is responsible for accepting the documents of such candidates and admitting them, whereas the draft law proposes to transfer these powers to the bodies that convene congresses or conferences and to the parliamentary committee.

This means that different bodies will decide on admission to the same competition, which creates a risk of inconsistent practice and of different approaches to assessing whether candidates’ documents meet statutory requirements.

The draft law also sets different methods of submitting documents depending on the body to which the candidate intends to submit them. For example, a person wishing to take part in the selection who submits documents to the body that convenes the relevant congress or conference may do so in person, by mail, or by electronic means of communication. If, however, the documents are submitted to the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada, the candidate may do so only in person or by mail.

The draft law itself does not explain why candidates for the same position should have different options for submitting documents, and different chances of being admitted, depending on the electing body. Unless there are objective technical or security obstacles, electronic submission should also be available in the parliamentary procedure, and the admission criteria should be uniform for all bodies.

While generally supporting the digitalization of document submission, the Venice Commission adds requirements that refusals of admission be reasoned, communicated to the candidate, and subject to appeal.

Therefore, HCJ candidates should be able to submit documents to the parliamentary committee electronically, and the admission criteria should be uniform for all bodies. 

Conclusion and recommendations

In its current form, Draft Law No. 16018 could do more harm than good. 

Therefore, Transparency International Ukraine supports its adoption at first reading as a basis, with mandatory revision before the second reading in accordance with Article 116 of the Law of Ukraine on the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, only on the condition that the revision is based on our recommendations:

• extend the participation of members nominated by international and foreign organizations not only to the second but also to at least the third composition of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, refrain from introducing a quota for Ukrainian citizens in it, and preserve its ability to engage assistants;
• leave unchanged the current voting procedure of the Selection Commission for HQCJ members, with the decisive vote of international experts;
• provide for a first stage consisting of a standardized assessment of professional knowledge and analytical skills through testing and/or a practical assignment; assess the other components of professional competence during a structured interview, and conduct the integrity check only for candidates who have passed the first stage;
• require the Selection Commission for HQCJ members to hold integrity interviews with every candidate;
• extend the participation of international experts to at least the second composition of the Ethics Council;
• establish uniform rules for assessing the professional competence of HCJ candidates for congresses, conferences, and parliamentary committees: common criteria, indicators, and a requirement to give reasons for decisions;
• allow HCJ candidates to submit documents to the parliamentary committee electronically, and make the admission criteria uniform for all bodies.