Vetting the judges

Judicial reform in Ukraine has been attempted repeatedly. The recurring obstacle is structural and easy to state: the bodies that appoint and discipline judges are themselves composed largely of judges.

Why that is a problem

Judicial self-governance is a genuine principle, adopted everywhere to protect courts from political interference. It works when the profession is broadly sound.

Where a substantial part of the profession is the problem, self-governance produces a closed system: the people assessing integrity are drawn from the group whose integrity is in question, and reform bodies were repeatedly reconstituted in ways that preserved existing balances.

The mechanism that worked

Integrity assessment with international experts holding a decisive role — not advisory, decisive. Candidates for the governing bodies were assessed by panels in which independent international members could block an appointment.

That is an unusual arrangement and it was accepted because everyone involved understood the alternative had already been tried several times.

Why it is legitimate rather than an imposition

Because it is temporary, transparent and adopted by Ukraine's own parliament. An external casting vote in an appointment panel is a limited and defined intrusion, not supervision of the courts themselves. And the objective is to produce bodies that can then operate without it.

What it has produced

Functioning judicial governance bodies, appointments proceeding, and a measurable number of candidates rejected on integrity grounds who would previously have been appointed.

The court system remains the least trusted institution in most surveys. Rebuilding that will take a generation, and the appointments made now determine whether it happens at all.

Why a profession finds it hard to assess itself is something I have seen in every sector, professional chambers included. What makes external participation legitimate is not imposition but disinterest. What it has produced I leave to lawyers to judge; what I can say is that the same principle holds in the audit profession.