All-Ukrainian conference of Committee of voters of Ukraine “Public Access to Administrative Justice: Problems and Solutions” was held on Friday, May 15. The conference was held within the project “Legal support and education for vulnerable segments of population through a network of permanent and mobile liaison offices” supported by European Union. The project aims to improve interaction between citizens and public authorities.

During the project implementation some shortcomings of procedural legislation in Ukraine were found. To eliminate those CVU experts developed draft laws “On ensuring access to justice and respect for the judiciary” and “On restoration of access to justice for vulnerable groups of the population.”

One of the problems is a practice to return claims to plaintiffs. This complicates the access of citizens to courts and undermines the credibility of the judiciary. Therefore, the law “On ensuring access to justice and respect for the judiciary” proposes to establish a rule that a court which received a claim over its jurisdiction does not return it to the plaintiff but transmits it to the relevant court. It also provides the right of individuals to appeal to court during a year and indicates individual cases when the term of submission is not limited. Associations also can appeal to court to protect human rights and freedoms. The subject of such claims will be appeal against some legal acts.

Too high minimum court fees to submit administrative and property claims are also problematic for citizens. Today it is 1.5 of minimum salary (1827 UAH.). The draft law “On restoration of access to justice for vulnerable groups of the population” proposes to reduce the limit to 0, 1 of minimum salary (121 UAH). At the same time it proposes to increase the maximum limit of fees up to 6 minimum salaries.