On 5 November 2020, the Council of Europe (CoE) office in Ukraine supported the launch of a Ukrainian user interface of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case-law database HUDOC, developed in co-operation with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, and specifically with the Office of the Agent of Ukraine before the ECtHR.
The event gathered more than 50 participants representing the CoE, ECtHR, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Office of the Prosecutor General and law enforcement agencies, the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, the National School of Judges, and other agencies.
Mr. Leif Berg, Head of the knowledge and management division at the ECtHR Secretariat welcomed all the participants and thanked all the partners and stakeholders for the cooperation. He also expressed his hopes for further cooperation beyond the HUDOC project.
Ms. Ganna Yudkivska, ECtHR judge elected in respect of Ukraine, noted that roughly 10,000 applications against Ukraine were currently pending before the Court, representing about 16 percent of its overall case-load. She expressed the hope that the Ukrainian HUDOC interface would further increase the understanding of the Court’s case-law among legal professionals and the general public.
Ms Olena Lytvynenko, the Deputy Head of the CoE Office in Ukraine, underlined that it is rather symbolic that such event as the launch of the Ukrainian user interface of HUDOC is taking place on the 70th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights. She also highlighted the importance of having the Ukrainian HUDOC user interface for the Ukrainian legal professionals.
Mr Ivan Lishchyna, the Deputy Minister of Justice in Ukraine and the Agent of Ukraine before ECtHR, welcomed everyone and stressed that the work on the Ukrainian user interface of HUDOC lasted for 4 years. He shared with all the participants the story of the development of the HUDOC user interface in Ukrainian.
Mr. Stefano Palermiti, the Head of the HUDOC unit informed the audience that the Ukrainian user interface joins the existing English, French, Georgian, Russian, Turkish and Spanish versions of the HUDOC user interface which already contains over 31,500 case-law translations in 31 languages other than English and French. Over 2,300 texts have been uploaded in Ukrainian and emanate from different partners. A language-specific filter allows for rapid searching in HUDOC, including in free text.
Mr Ruslan Khvoshchevskyy from the HUDOC unit in Strasbourg, demonstrated the demo version of the Ukrainian user interface of the HUDOC database.
All the participants had a possibility to have an open exchange of ideas during the Q&A session.
The launching event of the HUDOC Ukrainian user interface was organised within the framework of the CoE Project “Human Rights Compliant Criminal Justice System in Ukraine” which is implemented under the CoE Action Plan for Ukraine for 2018-2022.
