International experts conduct very superficial interviews with candidates during the selection process for the High Council of Justice and the High Qualification Commission of Judges. There are doubts as to whether they personally monitor the social media pages of Ukrainian candidates.

This was stated by Oleksiy Shevchuk, a lawyer, spokesperson for the National Association of Advocates of Ukraine (NAAU), and chair of the Committee on Information Policy and Media Relations, in an interview with UA.News. He himself had previously undergone an interview with the Ethics Council.

“I saw very clearly that the international experts were simply reading from a prepared list of questions. I have no doubt that they received a document prepared in advance with talking points that they simply had to voice. The questions were too similar to those sent by the secretariat. For example: ‘Did you write this post?’, ‘Is this your Facebook post?’ And this raises a logical question: Did Sir Anthony Hooper, a former judge from the United Kingdom, really personally analyze my social media page in Ukrainian? That’s unlikely. It’s much more likely that one of the Ukrainian staff members at the secretariat simply provided him with the necessary “script”—and he read it out,” says Oleksiy Shevchuk.

He also had no dialogue whatsoever with the members of the Ethics Council.

“It was a completely one-sided review. They asked questions—I answered. I was the only candidate who was interviewed in English—the recording, by the way, is available on the High Council of Justice’s website, so anyone can verify the truth of my words. But even the fact that I spoke to them in their own language did not make the dialogue any more open. The international experts’ behavior was quite condescending—I would even say snobbish. They placed themselves a step above the candidate. And the questions they asked had a distinctly accusatory tone. “This wasn’t a conversation; it was a cold interrogation devoid of context and respect for the legal specifics of the country to which they had come, ostensibly to conduct a fair and impartial selection,” says Shevchuk.

As a reminder, the High Council of Justice announced the launch of a competition for positions on the Selection Committee of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine without involving international experts. The corresponding decision was adopted at a meeting of the High Council of Justice on July 22.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have notified a retired judge—who is currently a member of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine—that he is suspected of embezzling more than half a million hryvnias in state funds.