In this dissertation, I carry out a comprehensive study of the strategic and legal framework for combating corruption in the Judicial System of Ukraine on the grounds of theoretical achievements in the fields of Judiciary and Procedural Law as well as other related sciences, existing international legal acts, domestic legislation, and judicial practice; I laid down a number of arguments, conclusions and practical guidelines for further development of the judiciary, updates of the national statutes and increase in efficiency of the domestic judicial system. On the grounds of the systematic analysis of the various definitions of the term "corruption" and taking into account the peculiarities of the judicial system functioning, I suggest that we should view the concept of "corruption in the judicial system of Ukraine" as a social phenomenon encompassing a set of acts related to abusing of official powers by judicial officers, who may potentially engage in corrupt practices, with the purpose of seeking their own interests and interests of third parties, as well as other offenses that promote or conceal corrupt activities. I defined Ukrainian judicial officers as persons, who may potentially engage in corrupt practices, from the point of view of my classification, which gave me an opportunity to demonstrate peculiarities of how each of them participates in corrupt activities. I suggested that we should divide them in accordance with their legal status as follows: (a) persons authorized to perform public functions, (b) persons, who hold key positions, and (c) persons with a special status. I took apart the current state of legal regulation in the field of combating corruption in the judicial system and named the persons authorized to perform these functions. I studied the experience of several foreign countries in the field of combating corruption in judicial systems and distinguished their common features that are as follows: (a) they adopted a specialized anti-corruption legislation, (b) they outlined regulatory requirements regarding the incompatibility of judicial officers and proportionate responsibility of the latter for violations of these requirements, (c) they ensure adequate financial support for judicial officers; (d) they support high ethical standards regarding these persons; (e) they established specialized anti-corruption institutions; (f) they exercise public control over judicial officers' activities and their direct participation in the process of combating this phenomenon, (g) they introduced property declarations, (h) they created specialized courts for reviewing corruption cases. The semantic analysis of the terms "corruption" and "risk" allowed us to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the statutory concept of "corruption risk in the judicial system" as a set of legal, organizational, and other influences and causing factors that encourage (stimulate) persons, who may potentially engage in corrupt practices, to actually commit corruption offenses while performing functions vested in them. Given the research subject, I expanded upon such corruption risks in the judicial system of Ukraine as misconduct of persons, who may potentially engage in corrupt practices, existence of a conflict of interest, absence of supervision, and existence of discretionary powers. I outlined and gave characteristics to the following corruptogenic factors of the judicial system of Ukraine: anthropological, social, and cultural factors as well as shortcomings of the legislation (loopholes, conflicts of laws, discretions).
