HACC Compliance Audit: One Year Later

Did the Accounting Chamber’s audit help resolve problems in supporting the work of the High Anti-Corruption Court?

In 2024, the Accounting Chamber conducted the first audit of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) in five years. The purpose of the audit was to examine the prerequisites for establishing and operating the Court, its performance of its judicial mandate, and to assess the level of financial, material and technical, and human resources support.

Based on the audit results, the Accounting Chamber found that the High Anti-Corruption Court carried out its activities in compliance with legal requirements and ensured the performance of its judicial mandate—despite challenges that affected the timeliness of proceedings, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the introduction of martial law, and instances of abuse of procedural rights by participants in court proceedings.

The audit also found that, despite adequate funding, the Court’s functioning was hampered by both insufficient staffing and the lack of necessary premises.

Following the audit, the Accounting Chamber issued more than a dozen recommendations to the High Anti-Corruption Court and other bodies, including judicial governance authorities, aimed at addressing key problems in the Court’s operations. More than a year has passed since the report was published, so we decided to determine whether the Accounting Chamber’s key recommendations have been implemented and to assess their impact on the work of the High Anti-Corruption Court.

Developing and approving the HACC development strategy 

In reviewing the Court’s internal administrative and organizational documents, the Accounting Chamber noted that they did not include a Development Strategy for the High Anti-Corruption Court as an institution. Such a document would define the institution’s fundamental directions of activity going forward. 

Although legislation does not require the HACC to approve a Development Strategy, the absence of such a strategy may negatively affect the Court’s planning processes and the achievement of its goals, the identification of strategic priorities, and the efficient use of available resources. A strategy would also be an important tool for demonstrating the Court’s openness, transparency, and accountability to the public. 

Against this background, the Accounting Chamber recommended that HACC develop and approve, by December 1, 2025, a Development Strategy that includes clearly defined priorities, strategic goals, and specific measures to achieve them. 

It is notable that the European Commission made a similar recommendation for the HACC (to develop a strategy to ensure the effectiveness of judicial proceedings) in November, in its 2025 EU Enlargement Report on Ukraine as a candidate country.  

In late November, the HACC reported that it had approved its 2026–2028 Institutional Development Strategy, meaning the Accounting Chamber’s recommendation was implemented on time.

Court staffing

One of the key problems affecting support for the High Anti-Corruption Court remains staff shortages—both among judges and within the Court’s staff. 

At the time of the audit, HACC’s judicial positions were filled at slightly under 60%: the actual number of judges administering justice, including judges of the HACC Appeals Chamber, was 37 out of the 63 available positions. This situation led to increased workload for judges, longer case consideration times, and an accumulation of cases. According to the Accounting Chamber, from September 2019 to November 2024, the number of pending criminal proceedings before the High Anti-Corruption Court doubled. 

One of the main factors driving the substantial gap between the approved number of judges and the Court’s actual staffing levels was the lengthy second competition for selecting HACC judges, which began in November 2023 and was ongoing at the time of the audit. 

The audit found significant delays at certain stages of the selection procedures. In particular, the qualification assessment of candidates was scheduled only seven months after the competition was announced, and the qualification exam was scheduled four months after the qualification assessment. Ultimately, the appointment of the selected candidates—only two remained after completing the competition—did not take place until June 2025.

The prolonged judicial selection competition not only hindered the Court’s ability to secure the necessary human resources, but also created risks of Ukraine failing to meet its international commitments under the Ukraine Facility Plan. That plan envisioned a 60% increase in the authorized number of HACC judges in the first quarter of 2025.

As a result, the Accounting Chamber recommended that the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ), as the body responsible for announcing and conducting the selection of HACC judges, establish deadline timeframes for competitive selection procedures for judicial positions. This timeframe was to begin upon publication on the Commission’s official website of information on the results of considering candidates’ admission, take into account the completion of the qualification assessment and/or participation in the competition, and end with the adoption of a decision identifying the competition winners. 

In May 2025, the HQCJ amended the Regulation on the Procedure and Methodology for Qualification Assessment and the tools used to determine it, including provisions allowing the Commission to set deadlines for qualification assessment by its decision, thereby implementing the Accounting Chamber’s recommendation.

The absence of established timeframes for selection procedures was not the only problem in selecting candidates for judicial positions at the High Anti-Corruption Court. Other shortcomings include a narrowed pool of potential candidates due to specific work experience requirements, an excessively short initial document submission period, incorrect questions in the test database, and an unjustifiably high passing score in the cognitive test. However, these shortcomings were not reflected in the audit report, which may indicate an incomplete analysis of problematic aspects of the HACC judicial selection process. 

In terms of staffing the HACC apparatus, the audit recorded a discrepancy between the actual number of HACC staff members and the authorized staffing levels. In particular, more than 120 positions remained vacant; these were established to support the work of newly appointed judges. In view of this, the Accounting Chamber recommended that, by July 1, 2025, the High Anti-Corruption Court initiate and implement effective measures to accelerate staffing of the Court’s apparatus after the full complement of judges is appointed.

In March, the HACC informed the Accounting Chamber that it had appointed 10 HACC staff members to support the work of judges who were to be appointed as a result of the judicial selection competition. At the same time, the Court announced a selection process to create a personnel reserve for 110 vacant positions to be filled after the remaining judges are appointed. Accordingly, implementation of the recommendation is ongoing.

Preventing delays in case consideration 

In assessing the High Anti-Corruption Court’s performance of its judicial mandate, the audit recorded an increase in the number of pending criminal proceedings, which negatively affects the timeframes for their consideration.

This situation was driven both by objective factors—such as the pandemic, the introduction of martial law, and the insufficient number of judges—and by shortcomings in legislative regulation. The latter include limited procedural mechanisms to counter certain abuses of rights by participants in proceedings, an insufficient range of preventive measures in legislation, and the requirement to restart criminal proceedings in the event a judge is replaced on the panel.

Importantly, amendments to criminal procedural legislation aimed at increasing the pace of consideration of corruption and corruption-related criminal offenses had already been planned as one of the measures under the State Anti-Corruption Program. However, the only change that was implemented was allowing criminal proceedings in the HACC, as a court of first instance, to be heard by a single judge.

Therefore, following the audit, the Accounting Chamber recommended that the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), as the implementer of the relevant measure under the State Anti-Corruption Program, prepare and submit to the government a draft law addressing:

• the inadmissibility of abuse of procedural rights by participants in criminal proceedings, as well as enabling an investigating judge or the court to recognize certain actions or omissions by such participants as an abuse; 
• expanding the grounds for imposing monetary penalties for breaches of obligations by participants in criminal proceedings and increasing the amounts of such penalties;
• simplifying the procedure for serving summonses in criminal proceedings on Ukrainian citizens residing abroad;
• narrowing the grounds for adjourning court hearings;
• establishing a procedure and defining the scope and sequence for examining evidence at a court hearing;
• enabling the court to pronounce only the introductory and operative parts of a lengthy verdict, with mandatory service or dispatch of the full text of the verdict to participants in the court proceedings on the day it is pronounced. 

In addition, the Accounting Chamber recommended that the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine take measures to draft and submit to Parliament a draft law allowing a criminal trial to continue if a judge who is not the presiding judge is replaced.

In its research, TI Ukraine has repeatedly highlighted the negative trend of delays in HACC proceedings. Our monitoring found that procedural abuses aimed at delaying court consideration are recorded in 55% of cases. Legislation lacks an effective mechanism to counter such abuses. 

In its 2025 report on Ukraine, the European Commission also emphasized the need to amend the Criminal Procedure Code in order to reduce obstacles and procedural delays in criminal proceedings, especially in high-level corruption cases. 

The Accounting Chamber’s recommendations also align with ours in terms of increasing the amounts of fines and monetary penalties for contempt of court and improper procedural conduct, as well as the need to resolve the problem of restarting a case after a judge is replaced. 

NACP drafted the draft law on Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine on the Inadmissibility of Abuse of Procedural Rights and, starting in late 2024, sent it to the government for consideration three times. However, in the first two instances, the draft law was returned due to disagreements with the Ministry of Justice, the State Bureau of Investigations, and the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights.  The most recent attempt to submit the bill to the Cabinet of Ministers took place in July 2025, but due to the government’s resignation, the document was returned again. As of late September, NACP was preparing the draft law for renewed coordination and resubmission, so implementation of the Accounting Chamber’s recommendation remains ongoing.

Unlike NACP, the government did not support the Accounting Chamber’s proposed approach to allowing a criminal trial to continue when a judge who is not the presiding judge is replaced. In the Ministry of Justice’s view, this approach contradicts the general principles of criminal proceedings because it would violate the principle of direct examination of evidence in criminal proceedings. 

However, as early as February 2024, members of Parliament registered a relevant draft law, but it was not placed on the agenda. Therefore, the prospects for adopting such amendments—as well as for implementing the Accounting Chamber’s recommendation by the government—appear unlikely.

Updating court performance and case consideration indicators

Among the other recommendations issued by the Accounting Chamber, it is worth highlighting the need to update HACC’s basic performance indicators by adding an indicator showing the percentage of decisions quashed or amended by higher courts out of the total number of decisions, as well as the need to introduce an indicator for the average length of case consideration for categories within HACC’s jurisdiction. 

The first indicator is essential for assessing the quality of judicial activity, including court decisions, and makes it possible to identify negative trends in a timely manner and respond to them. However, the HACC did not calculate or report this indicator because it was not required by law. Following the Accounting Chamber’s recommendation, the Council of Judges of Ukraine added the relevant indicator to the approved list of Basic Court Performance Indicators. Nevertheless, for almost a year, the administrator of the court’s automated case management system—Information Judicial Systems State Enterprise—has been unable to configure the required functionality, meaning the indicator of quashed and amended decisions is still not being calculated.

Indicators for the average duration of case consideration, in turn, affect the determination of judges’ workload. However, a judge workload level as a criterion for caseload has not been established, making it impossible to assess the effectiveness of the judicial process overall or to determine whether organizational changes are needed. 

Uncertainty around indicators related to the duration of case consideration also makes it impossible to calculate the cost of considering a single case. In view of this, the Accounting Chamber recommended that the High Council of Justice (HCJ) develop and implement indicators for the average duration of case consideration for categories within HACC’s jurisdiction, based on analytical research and consultations with stakeholders.

This initiative was supported by the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine and by the High Anti-Corruption Court itself, and in August the HCJ established a working group to develop and implement indicators for the average duration of case consideration for categories within the jurisdiction of the High Anti-Corruption Court.

Conclusion

The compliance audit of the High Anti-Corruption Court not only highlighted a number of pressing problems affecting support for the Court’s operations—particularly staff shortages and delays in case consideration—but also formulated relevant recommendations to address them. Notably, the substance of these recommendations partly aligns with the position of the European Commission and with TI Ukraine’s analytical findings.

The relevance of the recommendations is also confirmed by the level of their implementation: of the 13 recommendations issued following the audit, the High Anti-Corruption Court and the relevant public authorities implemented 7 within a year, and another 5 are in the process of implementation. Only in one case has implementation not begun—namely, the recommendation that the government draft a bill allowing a criminal trial to continue if a judge is replaced.

In assessing the audit’s impact, it is worth noting the High Anti-Corruption Court’s support for the audit approach to evaluating whether the Court’s operations are adequately resourced, as well as its active communication about existing problems in its work and possible ways to address them. In addition, HACC’s direct implementation of most of the recommendations addressed to it indicates that they are appropriate and responsive to the Court’s operational needs.

However, to improve the effectiveness of the High Anti-Corruption Court, the remaining Accounting Chamber recommendations also need to be implemented. Particularly, resolving the problem of having to restart criminal cases when a judge is replaced and introducing mechanisms to prevent abuse of procedural rights.

In addition, to strengthen HACC’s institutional capacity and improve the effectiveness of anti-corruption efforts, TI Ukraine recommends:

• comprehensively improving legislation on statutes of limitations (by establishing additional grounds for suspending limitation periods, extending their duration, and changing the end point for calculating them);   
• abolishing the automatic closure of cases due to the expiration of pre-trial investigation time limits;
• revising the provisions on single-judge consideration and extending them to civil forfeiture cases;
• requiring mandatory special confiscation when approving plea agreements.

At the same time, the implementation of a significant portion of the recommendations that require legislative amendments falls within the remit of other bodies. For this reason, it is advisable for the Accounting Chamber to continue actively monitoring the status of their implementation and to respond appropriately in cases of delay or inaction by the responsible entities.