Supreme Court of Ukraine

Supreme Court of Ukraine (Верховний Суд України; Verkhovnyi Sud Ukrainy). Ukraine’s highest judicial body of general jurisdiction with roots in the Soviet system and still aspiring to achieve European standards, a condition for Ukraine’s entry into the European Union (EU). It was formed in 1991 out of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR. Justices of the Supreme Court are selected from qualified candidates by the High Judicial Qualification Commission (HJQC), appointed and sworn in by the President of Ukraine, and they serve for life. The Court consists of no more than 200 judges (there were 153 in 2025), and is organized into a Grand Chamber plus four Cassation or Appeals Courts—Administrative, Commercial, Criminal, and Civil.

As with the Ukrainian judicial system as a whole, the Supreme Court’s history has been marked by external political interference as well as internal susceptibility to corruption. Since 1991 the courts in Ukraine have often been under the influence of the executive branch of government while the judges themselves were open to bribery in regard to their decisions. Hence the perennial problem of judicial reform and the EU’s continual prodding. An exceptional show of rectitude and independence was displayed during the Orange Revolution of 2004 when the Supreme Court agreed to review an appeal by Viktor Yushchenko against the results of the second round of presidential elections. On 3 December 2004 the Court concluded that there had been so many violations of the electoral law that the true results of the voting were impossible to determine. It therefore ordered a re-run of the second round for 26 December, ruling that its decision could not be appealed. The previous fraudulent victory of Viktor Yanukovych was thus overturned and Yushchenko won the contest.

Yanukovych had his revenge on winning the presidency in 2010. That spring he launched an outright attack on the Supreme Court of Ukraine. A new High Specialized Court for Civil and Criminal Cases was created and these cases—which then comprised the majority of all cases before the courts—were taken away from the Supreme Court. Nor would the Supreme Court be responsible for lower courts’ activity or provide guidelines on the interpretation and application of laws. The number of Supreme Court justices was also reduced from 94 to 20. The Venice Commission called Yanukovych’s action ‘an overt attack on the Supreme Court.’ One of the purposes of establishing the High Specialized Court, headed by a former Party of Regions parliamentarian, was to facilitate the punishment of Yanukovych’s main political opponent, Yuliia Tymoshenko.

Following the Euromaidan Revolution and Viktor Yanukovych’s flight to the Russian Federation, the Supreme Court of Ukraine was restored to its proper place atop the judicial pyramid. The High Specialized Court was dissolved and folded into the Supreme Court. There was to be a lustration of judges with new appointments made by competitive selection. The renewed Supreme Court went into operation on 15 December 2017, but the promise of reform was not fully realized. Lustration of the old Supreme Court judges never took place. In the competition for the new Supreme Court 17 of the 21 judges of the former Court took part. Judges of the previous High Courts then obtained leadership places in the new Supreme Court. As assessed by the Public Integrity Council, one-half of the judges in the new Supreme Court were of questionable integrity, advice that was ignored in their appointment. Staffed by the ‘old guard,’ the Supreme Court became an obstacle to reforms by its decisions and procrastination thus delaying or blocking the dismissal of compromised judges. The vetting of judges resumed in November 2023, but was considered to have achieved mixed results.

The need for reform was demonstrated again in May 2023, when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Vsevolod Kniazev, was arrested and charged with accepting 2.7 million USD in bribes. At the same time, at least three other Supreme Court judges were implicated in bribery as well. The justices of the Supreme Court voted (140 out of 142) to remove Kniazev from office. He was succeeded by Stanislav Kravchenko by a vote of 108 out of 148 of his peers in favor. However, as an original justice of Viktor Yanukovych’s High Specialized Court from 2011 and a judge who received negative evaluations from the Public Integrity Council, he is rather unlikely to give a proper attention to judicial reform. Not dismissed as a judge, Kniazev was released on bail and returned to work. The dilemma of judicial reform in Ukraine is that the President of Ukraine cannot unilaterally impose a reform without violating the principle of judicial independence nor can he rely on the judiciary itself to pursue needed reforms while ensconced in comfortable sinecures and indulging in profitably corrupt ways.

Bohdan Harasymiw

[This article was written in 2025.]