The judicial reform of 2016, during which significant changes were made to the Constitution of Ukraine and other normative legal acts, related to the procedure for conducting judicial proceedings, the procedure for electing judges, the legal status of judges, the judicial system, bodies of judicial governance and self-governance, etc. It is positive that this reform was carried out taking into account modern European experience and the involvement of experts from the Council of Europe: the vast majority of their recommendations regarding the judicial legislation of Ukraine were taken into account. At the same time, new challenges - changes in social and political life, the Соvid 19 pandemic, the full-scale invasion of the russian federation into Ukraine, Ukraine's acquisition of the status of a candidate country for membership of the European Union, have led to the continuation of the reform of the judiciary, which is still ongoing.
One of the key achievements of the judicial reform in 2016 is the creation of the High Council of Justice, which, unlike the Supreme Council of Justice, received more extensive and diverse powers the implementation of which is aimed at ensuring the independence of the judiciary. Considering the fact that the independence of the judiciary is one of the key conditions for the functioning of a democratic, independent and legal state, the study of the role of the High Council of Justice in ensuring the independence of the judiciary is extremely relevant.
The High Council of Justice is not the only body of the judicial branch of government tasked with ensuring the independence of the judiciary, but the only body whose authority to ensure the independence of judges is defined at the level of the Basic Law.
The High Council of Justice is in a difficult situation: in 2021, the consideration of disciplinary complaints was stopped, and on February 22, 2022, the High Council of Justice ceased its work altogether. The war in Ukraine also had a negative impact on the possibility of resuming the activities of the HCJ. Unblocking the work of this constitutional body at the beginning of 2023 led to the need to solve both accumulated and new problems, including in the field of ensuring the independence of the judiciary by HCJ. For example, as of today, the High Council of Justice has accumulated about 13,000 complaints against judges that need consideration.
It is argued that domestic scientific literature on issues of judicial governance is characterized by: 1) devoting the vast majority of research to the Supreme Council of Justice, which seems logical, because the latter existed for nineteen years, and the High Council of Justice has been functioning for six years; 2) fragmented attention to the role of the High Council of Justice in ensuring the independence of the judiciary (the vast majority of studies are devoted to its legal nature, constitutional and legal status, general principles of activity, disciplinary powers over judges, etc.); 3) the isolated nature of research on international and European standards of functioning of judicial councils similar to the HCJ in the modern world.
It was established that the independence of the judiciary as a legal phenomenon has internal (at the level of consciousness of a specific representative of the judiciary) and external (at the level of the state legal system) aspects. Internal independence is the duty of a judge during the administration of justice, and external independence of the judiciary is the provision of a practical opportunity for a judge to fulfill the specified duty to be independent, which is carried out with the help of a constitutional and legal mechanism, which consists of a system of guarantees, procedures, interaction of bodies authorities.
