Time to Evaluate: Candidates in the HACC Competition Have Completed Their Practical Tasks

On November 12 and 14, the final stage of the qualification exam — the practical assignment — took place. On both days, 85 of the 87 candidates who advanced to this stage of the exam were present.

This competition differs significantly from the previous two, as candidates are simultaneously applying for positions in both the first-instance court and the Appeals Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court. Because of this, the competition organizer — the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) — required candidates to complete not one but two practical tasks.

Next, the HQCJ will assess the completed tasks and assign scores.

What were the tasks and how will they be assessed?

Each candidate had to complete two tasks of different types. The first type involved drafting a judgment as a first-instance judge. The second type required drafting a ruling following an appellate review of a first-instance judgment.

This structure is tied to the competition’s unified ranking: under the HQCJ’s approach, candidates with the highest scores will be appointed to the Appeals Chamber, while those with slightly lower results will join the first-instance court. The threshold remains unchanged from the previous competition: 112.5 out of 150 points, or 75%.

The HQCJ must now evaluate 170 completed tasks in a timely and high-quality manner. To this end, on November 10, it created an examination commission, though its composition has not yet been disclosed.

What else will be different this time?

It is no secret that the previous HACC competition failed to achieve its goal. The most problematic stage was the practical assignment: only 7 out of 44 candidates managed to pass the threshold.

Unlike in IQ testing, one of the issues we identified was not the threshold itself but the lack of transparency in the assessment process. In particular, the completed practical tasks were not published, scoring sheets with criterion-level assessments were not made public, and the scoring distribution by criteria was not defined in the methodology.

The HQCJ has already taken several steps toward correcting these shortcomings — for example, by providing more detailed methodology for evaluating the completed tasks.

Also, last year examiners checked 44 tasks over nearly a month. Today, there are four times as many, so the HQCJ must effectively optimize its work to deliver a fast and high-quality result.

For reference, HQCJ member Serhii Chumak commented under a Facebook post that the Commission aims to finish evaluating the practical tasks by the New Year. We hope this will be the case, and that along with the results, the completed practical tasks and the criterion-by-criterion scores specified in the methodology will also be published.