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Despite the war-related funding and staffing challenges, most courts in Ukraine maintained
100% or even higher clearance rates in 2022. At first instance, the clearance rate was 105.5%
in civil cases, 97.6% in commercial cases, 111.7% in administrative cases and 99.5% in
criminal cases. At the appeal level, similar clearance rates are reported: 101% in civil cases,
103% in commercial cases, 99% in administrative cases, 98.9% in criminal cases. The general
clearance rate of the Supreme Court was 107.9% in 2022. The clearance rate at the
Constitutional Court was 68% in 2022. As for the number of pending cases at first instance
courts, there were 231 177 civil cases pending at the end of 2022, including 59 856 unresolved
for over a year, 34 168 commercial cases pending, including 10 417 unresolved for over a year,
119 471 administrative cases pending, including 25 544 unresolved for over a year, and
110 637 criminal cases pending, including 47 544 unresolved for over a year. At the appeal
courts, there were 23 218 civil cases pending, including 3 716 unresolved for over a year, 6 446
commercial cases pending, including 379 unresolved for over a year, 32 487 administrative
cases pending, including 1 305 unresolved for over a year, and 12 377 criminal cases pending,
including 3 223 unresolved for over a year. At the Supreme Court, the total backlog of cases in
2022 was 19 252.
As for the disposition time (time needed for a case to be resolved in days), according to the
latest CEPEJ statistics including 2021 data, it took 165 days to resolve a civil and commercial
case (129 days in 2018, 122 days in 2020) and 52 days for a criminal case (271 days in 2018,
298 days in 2020).
Given the war-related challenges, including displacement of the population and businesses,
deterioration of the economic situation and travel safety concerns, Ukraine should adopt
legislation that formally introduces remote hearings and regulates the procedural aspects of
such hearings, in full respect of the procedural rights of the parties. This would boost the
efficiency of court proceedings and facilitate access to justice, including in times of war.
Ukraine has a high number of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)
pending execution among the parties to the European Convention of Human Rights. In
particular, execution is pending for a significant period of time and structural reform measures
are still required for the ECtHR judgments related to non-enforcement of domestic court
decisions against state entities, judicial independence, unreasonable length of court
proceedings, poor prison conditions and inefficiency of ill treatment investigations. These cases
are subject to the supervision procedure before the Committee of Ministers of the Council of
Europe. Despite several war-related challenges, the Ukrainian authorities have cooperated
closely with the relevant Council of Europe bodies and made efforts to enforce outstanding
ECtHR judgments during the reporting period.
To deal with the systemic problem of non-enforcement of domestic court decisions, the
government adopted a special strategy in September 2020 and an action plan to implement this
strategy in March 2021. The action plan envisaged among other things a revision of social-
oriented legislation, additional enforcement mechanisms related to state-owned enterprises
protected by moratoria, the improvement of legislation on bankruptcy, the introduction of
efficient judicial control over the enforcement of court decisions, the improvement of
enforcement procedures and expansion of powers of private bailiffs, and the creation of a
register of court decisions rendered against state entities. Most measures in the action plan still
need to be carried out.
In 2022, the number of new enforcement cases fell by more than half due to the war – from
4.1 million to 1.7 million. In June 2022, the Parliament adopted a law that prohibited
enforcement cases from being opened in the temporarily occupied territories and in the war
zone. In April 2023, another law was adopted to introduce a minimal protected amount on