On Wednesday, a designated commission concluded its part of the competition to appoint a new judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on behalf of Ukraine and disclosed the rankings.

Sergiy Sydorenko, co-editor of the European Pravda, sheds light on the competition’s details and its importance in his op-ed Ukraine is Replacing the ECtHR Judge: Candidates, Problems, and Procedure.

The Commission has already interviewed 13 candidates and now must choose three finalists before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) approves a candidacy for the next nine years (or longer, as it often happens).

This is a highly important position as the ECtHR judge will review all cases against Ukraine alongside the intergovernmental ones lodged by Ukraine against Russia. It is, therefore, important that this position is held by a legal professional not deemed biased by Ukrainian society. Admittedly, such a possibility existed. Yet, the danger has now faded.

That said, the Commission will likely not submit the top-three of the selected pool of candidates to the PACE due to the Council of Europe’s "soft requirement", i.e. a gender-balanced candidate list. Accordingly, it must not feature three men or three women. Ukraine is unlikely to violate this rule, meaning that it will try to include one woman and one man from the top-3. The competition’s rules allow for that.

Although the Office of the President should have officially finalized and published the list this Wednesday, it is yet to do both. 

Worth reminding, that the two previous competitions have been disrupted. European Pravda’s sources report that the Ukrainian government wants to put an end to it and complete the selection this time.

It is well able to do so without nominating toxic candidates, per the interim results. Read more about the procedure and the candidates in Mr. Sydorenko’s op-ed Ukraine is Replacing the ECtHR Judge: Candidates, Problems, and Procedure.