"The first pancake turned out to be a lump". HACC explains reasons for delay in appointment of judges
Photo: Bohdan Kryklyvenko / Facebook

Chief of Staff of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) Bohdan Kryklyvenko said that the delay in appointing new judges was not intentional. He said this said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

The delay in the appointment of HACC judges was one of the reasons why Ukraine did not receive the fourth installment of the Ukraine Facility program.

According to Kryklyvenko, the reason was a number of organizational errors and the complexity of the tender procedure.

"We have no facts or grounds to assert that it was some kind of deliberate sabotage, it was a series of organizational mistakes and miscalculations," Kryklyvenko said.

He also explained that the HACC itself did not participate in the competition. The court was just waiting for the vacancies to be filled. The selection was conducted by the new High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ), for which this was the first such competition.

"The first pancake turned out to be lumpy," emphasized the HACC Chief of Staff.

"That is, there were a number of factors that coincided in time and led to this result. This is a very complex multi-stage process. And it happened without malice. At least we think so, because there is no reason to think otherwise," Mr. Kryklyvenko said.

According to him, most of the candidates did not "make it" from the HQCJ to the HCJ: only two candidates out of 261 who applied at the start of the competition remained.

"Objectively speaking, it was not the HCJ or the President's Office that 'cut them off', it was the candidates who were 'sifted' at several stages of the HQCJ," he emphasized.

Now the next competition has been amended: the passing score for cognitive tests has been lowered and the procedure for the practical task has been changed.

  • August 8, Council of the European Union approved the disbursement of the fourth installment to Ukraine amounting to about 3.2 billion euros with 4.5 billion euros.
  • The reason for the shortfall was the failure to implement three of the 16 reforms: increasing the staff of the High Anti-Corruption Court, the law on the relaunch of the ARMA (already signed) and the law on the establishment of the prefects' institution.