How the 22 Prospective HACC Judges Were Selected

The material was prepared in co-authorship with Andriy Tkachuk, legal advisor to Transparency International Ukraine.

The cap on HACC judges was raised back in September 2023, yet the competition for new judges is still ongoing. It has now been launched for the second time, and this round looks far more likely to actually fill the bench. 

In mid-March, the Public Council of International Experts (PCIE), together with the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine (HQCJ), wrapped up the largest interview stage in the history of HACC judge selection. For a full month, anyone interested could watch the live stream as 69 candidates faced pointed questions from the PCIE and HQCJ, trying to prove their integrity and professionalism.

Twenty-two candidates cleared the interviews (32% of all those who participated). The PCIE and HQCJ selected 16 sitting judges, 5 scholars, and 1 attorney. One caveat: the HACC will not actually gain 22 new judges but 19, since three of those who advanced are sitting judges of the HACC first instance applying to the Appeals Chamber — meaning their first-instance seats will also open up. 

Still, 19 new judges will grow the HACC bench by nearly one and a half times — from 40 to 59 — filling 93.65% of the current vacancies. That is enough for Ukraine to meet its commitments under the Ukraine Facility Plan. It is a result worth taking pride in, as the expanded bench will make it easier for the HACC to deliver timely justice.

 So how were these 22 judges chosen? Let us take a closer look.

A study in contrasts: systemic improvement vs. opaque scoring

Last year, only 7 candidates reached the interview stage. This time, 73 made it through to the PCIE and HQCJ. And the reason is not luck — it is systemic improvement of the competition procedures, a process TI Ukraine also contributed to.

The overall elimination rate at each stage of the qualification exam dropped from 43.3% to 13% in the repeat competition. 

The main driver was the new rules introduced under Draft Law No. 12331-2. It reopened the competition to those who had previously failed, missed, or refused the qualification exam — 82 of 205 applicants, or 40% of the total.

The impact of these changes is clearest in the numbers: without the updated rules, we would have had 6 finalists instead of 22, since 16 of those who successfully completed interviews with the PCIE this year had already taken part in prior judicial competitions.

At the same time, the HQCJ chose not to lower the minimum thresholds for the Ukrainian statehood test and the cognitive ability (IQ) test below 75%. In the previous HACC selection round, it was precisely the difficult IQ tests at that high threshold that produced the heaviest attrition — eliminating 79 of 123 participants.

Instead of adjusting the threshold, the HQCJ changed the IQ test provider and, judging by the results, reduced the difficulty of the tests. The Commission apparently took a similar approach with the Ukrainian statehood test — the elimination rate there was the lowest at just 2.5%.

The most dramatic contrast, however, is at the practical assignment stage: only 14.1% failed this time, versus 84% in the 2025 competition. And we have no answer as to why, because the HQCJ ignored calls from civil society to publish the candidates’ written judgments from the practical assignment, along with criterion-by-criterion scoring by members of the examination board.

None of this would matter if HQCJ members had not then squandered the interview opportunity to ask candidates — at least 8 times — about serious errors in their practical assignments. For example, Olena Roik was asked why her judgment convicted the defendant of a more serious offense than the one charged, and Ihor Omelian was asked why his sentence in a false declaration case ordered the convicted person to file an amended declaration. Equally puzzling were the questions about why Yevhen Didenko and Ivan Posokhov ordered special confiscation of laptops used to submit knowingly false declarations, or why Andrii Dudikov mistakenly applied a law that was not in force at the time the offense was committed. 

Judging by the questioning, candidate Olha Pevna — one of the “22” — also made an error in her practical. HQCJ member Serhii Chumak pointed out that her judgment mistakenly imposed a fine above the statutory maximum, and that was not the only concern about Pevna.

We would be able to make sense of these questions if we had access to the completed practical assignments. This once again shows that opaque scoring of practicals only undermines trust in the competition process.

What came up in the PCIE and HQCJ interviews?

As mentioned, the interviews ran for over a month, and despite the punishing schedule and workload, the PCIE and HQCJ genuinely worked hard to keep the bar high. Civil society organizations supported that effort — Transparency International Ukraine, among others, submitted concerns about individual candidates to the Commission and the international experts.

None of this productive work would have been possible without new legal conditions. Draft Law No. 11426, in force since November 2024, gave the PCIE full access to the dossiers of both candidates and sitting judges applying for HACC positions, and extended the interview window from 30 to 45 days.

The longer window proved especially valuable: experts analyzed all available information and conducted interviews with 69 candidates in just 42 days.

As usual, the PCIE and HQCJ focused on assets, ethical conduct, and professionalism. 

Questioning about assets, wealth, and lifestyle was sharp. Candidates often claimed they had managed to live on incomes below the subsistence minimum thanks to tight budgeting and food from their parents. Particular attention went to cases closed under Article 130 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (driving under the influence) — relevant because drawn-out handling of such cases often signals compromised adjudication.

An entirely new line of questioning concerned candidate-judges’ use of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions under full access. Full access, as a reminder, allows users to check whether assets are under arrest, whether a search or other investigative action is being planned, and to look up full names, addresses, and other highly sensitive information. As it turned out, questionable USRCD searches were common among the candidates, and any instance of baseless lookups on relatives and friends seriously damaged their credibility.

The Commission found cases where judges and their assistants had searched for information about themselves, relatives, or other people unrelated to their cases. Judge Tetiana Troian, for example, admitted she used USRCD to watch for a possible bank lawsuit over a debt. Vita Matolych searched for court decisions involving relatives by name or phone number. Candidate Dmytro Movchan looked up one of his relatives in the register more than 100 times.

Separate attention went to candidates’ visits to Russian territory or occupied parts of Ukraine after 2015 — which they described as tourism, personal, or business trips. Explanations like “I saw the occupation as temporary” or references to trips to Kursk Region in 2019 were met with skepticism.

The PCIE and HQCJ also monitored social media — including relatives’ TikTok accounts — to identify undeclared businesses, as happened with candidate Syvokin. He maintained that his wife had no business of any kind, but PCIE members produced what appeared to be her TikTok account, where she presented herself as a beauty professional.

A trail of uncertainty

The challenges of the HACC competition do not end here. Three sitting HACC judges appear set to move up to the Appeals Chamber. This will not create a serious personnel gap in the first instance, but it will significantly affect cases in which these judges served as presiding judges or panel members — their withdrawal means those cases will have to be heard from the start. That includes cases against Hladkovskyi, the Kyrylenko spouses, Mykytas, and others.

On another front, the court will expand its headcount by nearly one and a half times, which creates an urgent need for suitable new premises. On March 25, the HACC even issued an open letter to the President of Ukraine on this.

The 4-judge shortfall at the HACC also means another HACC competition — the fourth — may lie ahead. Replicating the same selection procedure will be extremely difficult, since the PCIE’s mandate expires this May. For the PCIE to take part in the next round, Parliament will need the political will to extend its participation in HACC selection — so that every HACC judge is chosen under the same procedure.