With the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, the country’s integration with the European Union received a solid boost. In just the 2 years since the Russian invasion Kyiv has been on a long and productive journey from filling out an application form to the beginning of accession negotiations at the end of June 2024. Further advancement depends on Ukraine and its ability to make a strategy for reforms in the coming years. 1 of the most crucial tracks in this context is judiciary reform, which started in 2014 and which will proceed along the way to joining the EU as a full member.
In this context, the improvement of the national legal strategy constitutes a major challenge for Ukrainian civilian society on its way to changing its institutions and gathering the requirements of the European Commission. Precisely, 1 of the outcomes that the EC expects from Ukraine is high-quality and corruption-free legal education.
This goal is acquainted to Ukrainian experts in legal education. 4 years ago, civilian society organizations consolidated their position in a manifesto, which determined 1 of the basic principles of legal education improvement in Ukraine. This is the organization division of legal education and law enforcement training. The importance of this peculiar condition was recognized in the G7 ambassadors’ “Priorities for 2024”. In their statement, the diplomats supported the establishment of an “institutionally delineated legal education and law enforcement training”. However, the way to any kind of desired legal education strategy is full of obstacles. These are the consequence of erstwhile decades’ endorsement of an ineffective, Soviet-spirited system, which has small in common with any EU associate state’s legal education.
Modern legal education in Ukraine
Ukraine’s legal education strategy represents a clear dichotomy. While in the EU associate states there is simply a clear division between law schools (which prepare lawyers) and police academies (which prepare law enforcement specialists), the strategy is more complicated in Ukraine. The training of lawyers takes place in both civilian law schools and educational institutions “with specialized conditions of instruction”. The second amounts to the rough equivalent of a police academy. Despite both types of institutions preparing lawyers, they are subordinated to different governmental bodies. While those at law schools are aligned with the ministry of education and science, universities with specialized conditions of instruction are connected to law enforcement bodies (the ministry of interior affairs, safety service, etc.).
Experts claim that this strategy of preparing lawyers has proven to be ineffective at 3 levels:
- The application and admission process. Law enforcement universities admit about the same number of applicants as the general law schools but their admission process does not require transparent competition. The selection of candidates so takes place behind closed doors. Moreover, around 10 law enforcement universities offer about the same number of state-funded (i.e. free of charge) places as around 50 civilian law schools, which shows a clear imbalance. This is especially actual considering the lower level of preparation graduates receive in this first kind of institution.
- The training of students. The quality of legal education in law enforcement universities is clearly not as good as in civilian law schools. This is evident from the exam results of BA students. In fact, the results of the 2022 and 2023 MA entrance exams indicate that those BA graduates who studied law in law enforcement universities demonstrated results that were below average. Moreover, the results were even worse in 2021, the last year before the introduction of a simplified exam model due to the full-scale war. 1 of the key factors concerning these mediocre results is the deficiency of academic freedom. alternatively of encouraging this ideal, the principles of legal education in specified universities are based on subordination, discipline, etc.
- Use of public funds. A 2019 audit indicated that public funds are frequently misused by law enforcement universities. This is in spite of the fact that they are better funded than civilian universities. In particular, the audit reports on many ineffective decisions made by the universities with specialized conditions of education and admits that there is simply a deficiency of strategical planning in specified institutions.
It is crucial to underline that these are organization problems. As a result, organization “delineation” is required erstwhile it comes to the preparation of lawyers. In practice, delineation means the creation of 2 independent tracks for law enforcement training (universities subordinated to the ministry of interior affairs) and for the preparation of lawyers (universities subordinated to the ministry of education and science). The anticipation of preparing lawyers in law enforcement universities would be eliminated in this fresh approach.
The steps to reform
Ukrainian experts and MPs have already attempted to start a dialog about the reform. In November 2023 the members of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Legal Policy established a working group on legal education, which active key experts representing civilian society organizations in drafting the improvement framework. So far the group members have met on 2 occasions.
However, it is already clear that there is simply a consensus in the expert community about the time frame of the reform. The delineation of the education of lawyers and law enforcement specialists, with respective stages of transformation, is likely to take between 4 to six years. This amounts to the full first and second cycles of education and includes a margin to complete the transformation. On the legislative level, the change of norms and regulations will specify the fresh principles of legal education, in which the preparation of lawyers and law enforcement specialists will be pursued in different institutions. At the same time, the curriculum for legal education must be unified and general standards must be adopted. On a structural level, the improvement will mainly concern the universities active in the transformation. For the universities with specialized conditions of education, the improvement will mean the liquidation of the track that prepares lawyers. At the same time, the law enforcement track will end at civilian universities.
Is there a consensus between all stakeholders?
This improvement in legal education concerns respective major groups of stakeholders. This includes institutions connected to the ministry of interior affairs, specified as its subordinated universities. This is besides the case regarding bodies that are closely tied to the ministry of education and science. The national agency for higher education quality assurance is besides active alongside the professional community of lawyers and university staff and students. These groups of stakeholders have different opinions regarding the request for reform, although a dialog seems possible.
The main disagreement in this case concerns the 2 policy-making institutions. While the ministry of education and discipline advocates for organization delineation, the ministry of interior affairs insists on preserving the position quo. 1 of the main reasons for this is the disproportionate allocation of funds. While all public universities are subsidized by the state, with the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine most universities have experienced dwindling funds. However, the universities with specialized conditions of instruction, subordinated to the government’s law enforcement bodies, were given precedence for public funding. Due to this, they proceed to operate without any real issues at the moment. These universities can subsequently offer inexpensive BA and MA programmes in legal education, which are favoured by prospective students in comparison to the more costly contracts offered by civilian legal schools subordinated to the ministry of education and science.
Conclusion
Ukraine’s integration with the EU requires multilevel changes in the national judiciary. 1 specified level concerns legal education. Specifically, Ukraine needs a fresh legal education strategy with delineated tracks for the preparation of lawyers and law enforcement specialists in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the judiciary. For Ukraine’s legal education to meet EU standards, courses for the preparation of lawyers and law enforcement specialists gotta take place in different institutions – law schools in public universities on the 1 hand, and police academies on the other. While Ukrainian MPs and civilian society representatives have demonstrated a desire to prosecute specified reform, the consolidation of the main stakeholders’ efforts are besides required in order to bring about meaningful change. All in all, Ukrainian society will be the main beneficiary of this prospective reform’s success, as the country needs a functioning judiciary to keep building democracy.
Ivan Posylnyi is the task manager of the Reanimation Package of Reforms Coalition, an association of leading organizations for implementing reforms in Ukraine.
