Ukraine: Opinion on the Draft Procedure for Monitoring the Lifestyle of a Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine

Following Decision 13-r/2020 of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which declared unconstitutional provisions on the lifestyle monitoring of Constitutional Court judges, additional procedural safeguards were introduced for the lifestyle monitoring of ordinary judges and Constitutional Court judges. The Draft Procedure analyzed in the Opinion operationalizes these safeguards by regulating the procedural modalities for the National Agency on Corruption Prevention’s lifestyle monitoring of Constitutional Court judges, while maintaining the same scope, substance, and depth of monitoring as for other public officials. The Opinion notes that international standards do not require States to establish lifestyle monitoring or distinct financial control procedures for judges, but allow additional procedural guarantees provided that judges are not subject to less stringent or narrower forms of verification. It also underlines that certain aspects of the Draft Procedure would nevertheless benefit from greater clarity, particularly regarding the operation of procedural safeguards, internal decision-making and approvals, and references to applicable legislation on corruption-related offences.