Observation of the legislation governing the system of disciplinary liability of judges, personnel changes and existing practices revealed several problems during the 2022-2023 years period. The process of European integration, particularly the justice reform recommended by the European Commission, presented a valuable opportunity to implement fundamental changes within the judiciary, including reforms to the disciplinary liability system. Unfortunately, the ruling party did not demonstrate the necessary political will, limiting the process to superficial legislative amendments. In contrast to the above, significant personnel changes were made within the bodies involved in the disciplinary system. Although most of them were unsubstantiated and lacked transparency. As for the practice of disciplinary proceedings, no substantial improvements were observed during the reporting period. Some of the decisions of authorized bodies remain inaccessible, and public documents are often standardized and contain only minimal formal justifications. Finally, the system of disciplinary liability is one of the directions in the field of justice, where the availability of public information has markedly deteriorated compared to recent years.

This monitoring report is fourth in line and it covers the period from January 1, 2022, to December 31, 2023. It examines the changes and assessments of the legal framework governing the system of judicial disciplinary liability, identifies the shortcomings in the process of staffing the bodies involved in disciplinary proceedings, and analyzes the practices established by these bodies. The main findings of the report are:

• The troubling practice of abrupt and unjustified personnel changes - individuals in administrative positions within the bodies involved in the system of disciplinary liability of judges are frequently leaving their posts prematurely without explanation - continues, which exacerbates the already low public trust in the judiciary and undermines the system’s effective accountability;
• The bodies involved in disciplinary proceedings are becoming increasingly closed in terms of information transparency. This growing lack of transparency poses significant challenges to monitoring their activities, ensuring accountability, and safeguarding and supporting individual judges. Notably, as of July 2024, the 2023 annual report of the Independent Inspector’s Office remains unavailable for the first time;
• The legislative changes carried out in the system of disciplinary liability of judges during the reporting period, as well as the reform of the judiciary as a whole, have once again altered the relevant legislation without any substantial improvement. One positive change is the elimination of the possibility of removing a district (city) or appellate court judge from case consideration in the event of disciplinary proceedings against them;
• The procedure for electing an Independent Inspector remains problematic and does not fully guarantee the Inspector’s proper institutional independence. Furthermore, still, the legislation does not provide for the disclosure of the information on the competition for the Inspector’s office and the data regarding the participants;
• Disciplinary proceedings continue to be conducted with significant violations of deadlines, which undermines both the effectiveness of the disciplinary liability system and the independence of individual judges.

This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union, within the framework of the project "Promoting greater civic awareness and engagement in judicial reforms and facilitating increased access to justice through holistic multi-agency action". Its contents are the sole responsibility of Social Justice Center and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

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