UBA news
The Ukrainian Bar Association held IV Judicial Forum on 1-2 October 2015, supported by LCF Law Group. During two days more than 250 participants visited the event among which were judges and practicing lawyers from Ukraine, Baltic States, Europe and USA. The event covered an extremely wide range of legal questions and continued with a focus on reforming the Ukrainian judicial system. The forum can boast speeches devoted to disputes with the state, private-law disputes, criminal proceedings with international elements, constitutional complaints and Ukraine’s role on the international scene.
A speech of Oleksiy Filatov, deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, who is responsible for the legal enforcement of the constitutional functions of the President of Ukraine, particularly in the sphere of judiciary, the elaboration and implementation of the judicial reform, was one of the “special appeals” on the forum. Mr. Filatov keynoted innovations of judicial proceedings — proposals to improve procedural legislation. In his opinion, it is necessary to change the philosophy of judicial proceedings in general but not only certain legal regulations. Mr. Filatov described radical changes in judicial proceedings: judicial proceedings should be carried out for a goal and not for proceedings as such (a procedure should be subordinated to a task of judicial proceedings), conscientiousness in the exercising of rights and discharge of duties by a court and parties, the role of a court as an arbiter not as a legal investigator, effectiveness in quality and not quantity. The task of commercial legal proceedings as an overriding objective lies in proportionality, expansion of judicial protection methods, expansion of evidence (witnesses, experts, etc.), new rules of security for a suit, legal definiteness and restriction of reconsideration of decisions. The conscientiousness of a court and parties includes maximum openness and transparency, exclusion of abuse of rights by a court and parties (liability for abuse), gradual implementation of sole right of attorney at law to representation and total reimbursement of expenses for a court. The role of a court as an arbiter lies in competitiveness as the pivot of any procedural institution; pre-trial dispute settlement with participation of a judge, amicable agreement is possible at all stages of the process. The effectiveness of legal proceedings lies in change of rules of jurisdiction, guaranteeing the stages of judicial process, new types of conduct (appointed conduct, common suit conduct and simplified suit conduct), e-court, control of implementation a court judgment.
Vitaliy Serdyuk, partner of AVER LEX, contributed about the practice of “default” judgment in Ukraine. Mr. Serdyuk pointed out the negative consequences of such a practice for businessmen. He underlined that such practice could result in the deprivation of freedom and forfeiture of business, because as a protection mechanism it is entirely discredited. Summing up, the speaker gave certain recommendations on how to resist the system. It would be better to provide proof of validity of causes of absence by investigator’ summons, the defense attorney should monitor information of consideration of relevant applications in court, it is necessary to inform opponents on invariable participation of certain attorney’s defense and to monitor national mass media and web-sites of bodies of the pre-trial investigation. The investigator also should be informed of the addresses where he/she can send summons to a businessman. It is also necessary to exclude premises to suppose that a client avoids from investigation with the aim of avoiding liability. If a client cannot arrive to an investigator in person, an attorney should apply the provisions on a remote investigation (Article 232 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine).
Ukrainian Deputy Justice Minister Sergiy Shklyar spoke about the State Executive Service (Bailiffs) and on international experience in reforming the enforcement system of Ukraine. Mr. Shklyar reported on recent legislative initiatives in enforcement proceedings. To cite certain of those initiatives, it is planned to implement a system of private enforcement officers alongside the state system of enforcement proceedings.
