On September 6, 2019, in of Severodonetsk, Luhansk region, the Council of Europe project “Support to the implementation of judicial reform in Ukraine” (the Project) organized a round table discussion on a number of issues regarding the functioning of justice in the east of Ukraine.

The round table was attended by the representatives of the Supreme Court, the Council of Judges of Ukraine, national experts of the Project, judges of the Luhansk Court of Appeal, the First Administrative Court of Appeal and judges of local courts of Luhansk region.

At the opening of the round-table event, Ilia Chernohorenko, the manager of the Project, informed the participants that the Project will analyze the right to a fair trial in the East of Ukraine in terms of its compliance with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and will further formulate recommendations for amending legislation and improving case-law.

Dmytro Hudyma, the Judge of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court outlined the latest decision of the Grand Chamber concerning compensation for destroyed commercial property during anti-terrorist operation and the relevant practice of the European Court of Human Rights in this regard.

The Chairman of the Luhansk Court of Appeal Volodymyr Havrylyuk and the Chairman of the First Administrative Court of Appeal Igor Gerashchenko highlighted the issues of organizing justice and court activities to ensure the rights of people who suffered as a result of the conflict in the east Ukraine. The Chair of the Criminal Court Yuriy Savich stressed on the need of legislative regulation of the issues related to the qualification of crimes related to separatist activity, the inclusion of terms of serving sentences of convicts and individual issues of correspondence proceedings.

In turn, Mykhailo Buromenskyi, National Expert of the Project, Professor of the Institute of International Relations of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, highlighted some issues of the application of international humanitarian law in court practice and informed the participants about the preparation of a new version of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which will regulate the issue of criminal responsibility as to the committing war crimes.