Rule of Law Checklist at National Level. Case of Ukraine
10 may 2021
The Project was implemented with support of Council of Europe Office in Ukraine and European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission).
The handbook “Rule of Law Checklist at National Level. Case of Ukraine” is a complex and detailed instrument of rule of law state evaluation both in legal drafting and norm implementation spheres. This instrument is based on the “Rule of Law Checklist” (CDL-AD (2016) 003) adopted by the Venice Commission on its 106th plenary session (Venice, March 11-12, 2016). “Rule of Law Checklist at National Level” includes several major elements of the rule of law specific to Ukrainian conditions, namely legality, legal certainty, equality before the law and non-discrimination, proportionality, prevention of the abuse of powers, access to justice.
Except for the rule of law elements from the mentioned Venice Commission document it additionally includes the principle of proportionality which is very important for legal practice. “The Rule of Law Checklist” also partially changes the traditional approach to addressing the “prevention of the abuse of powers”. It mainly focuses at “limiting discretionary powers”. This is mostly due to current practice issues in Ukraine. Other components also take those into account.
The implementation of international standards into the national legal system is conducted mainly on legislative level. That is why, this “Checklist” is aimed mainly at legislative process and legal drafting practice. Therefore, the main audience is Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine attracted specialists as well as other actors involved in legal drafting and their expertise as well as implementation. We hope that this instrument will be handy also to those who implement norms primarily to Constitutional Court of Ukraine justices and other courts’ judges. Rule of law state evaluation should be done not in the form of external control, and this has to be a non-ending process of daily law application with full understanding of the essence and content of the rule of law and its components.
