The extremely challenging context of the functioning of Ukrainian justice system at the time of war did not, however, leave behind the necessity of compliance of the State with the Council of Europe convention obligations. This was fully re-affirmed by Ukrainian stakeholders during the meeting of expert group on the execution of the European Court of Human Rights judgments, held in Warsaw on 18-19 April 2023. The representatives of key national justice and law enforcement agencies updated on the progress, as well as challenges, while looking forward to finding practical solutions towards the execution of Strasbourg Court’s judgments in cases against Ukraine.

The position of Ukraine before the Committee of Ministers, developments related to the judiciary (Oleksandr Volkov, Merit/Svetlana Naumenko groups of cases), effective investigations (Kaverzin/Afanasyev, Levchuk, Yukhymovych, Logvinenko and Isayev groups of cases), detention (Ignatov group of cases) were on the top of the discussion list.

The meeting was organised by the Council of Europe’s Department for the Execution of the Judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in cooperation with the Co-operation programmes Division of the Department for the Implementation of the Human Rights, Justice and Legal Co-operation Standards with the contribution of the Council of Europe projects “Fostering Human Rights in the Criminal Justice System in Ukraine”, “Strengthening Ukrainian Law Enforcement Agencies During War and Post-War Period”, and “Ensuring the effective implementation of the right to a fair trial in Ukraine”, implemented within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2023-2026.