Judicial reform, attempt by attempt

Judicial reform is the longest-running item on the Ukrainian agenda, and it has been attempted in several distinct waves. The repetition is not evidence that nothing happened; it is evidence of how hard the problem is.

What a business actually needs from a court

Not fairness in the abstract. Predictability: that a contract will be read as written, that a similar case will be decided similarly, and that the outcome does not depend on who the other party knows.

And enforcement, because a judgment that cannot be executed is a piece of paper.

Why reform is structurally difficult

Because the judiciary has to be independent, which means it cannot simply be reorganised by the government of the day — and that same independence protects whatever is wrong with it.

Every reform therefore has to solve the same puzzle: who vets the judges, and who vets the vetters, without handing the executive a lever over the courts.

The mechanism that emerged

Vetting bodies with international participation, assessing candidates and sitting members against integrity and competence criteria, with published reasoning.

The international element is contested domestically and is there for a specific reason: it breaks the circle in which the institution assesses itself.

Where it stands

Better at the top of the system than the bottom, better in commercial disputes than in some other categories, and better than a decade ago on any measure available.

Not yet at the point where a foreign investor treats the courts as a neutral risk, which is the honest test and the one worth measuring against.

What a business wants from a court is not a philosophy of justice but a predictable timescale and an enforceable decision. Over twenty years both improved, and not at the same speed — obtaining a judgment became easier and enforcing one did not become easier to the same degree. Rather than judging how many attempts it took, it is more useful to keep the measure on those two.