Independence and accountability

Why this report

Four years ago, taking the oath of a member of the High Council of Justice in parliament, I explained why I was joining the HCJ. I saw the main task quite simply: cleansing the judiciary of those who lack integrity, protecting those who have it, and appointing honest, independent and professional judges. And the ultimate goal — restoring trust in the courts.

My appointment took place after the rules for forming the HCJ had already changed — with candidates vetted by the Ethics Council with the participation of international experts. So now that my term has ended, it is only natural to return to those words of four years ago and answer a simple question: what of it was achieved, and what was not.

Such a report, in my view, should become normal practice for HCJ members and for other judicial governance bodies. If we demand accountability from judges, we must also be ready to explain to society how we used the powers we were given.

This is not a report on the HCJ as a whole, and certainly not a list of “my achievements”. The HCJ is a collegial body. Practically no decision here can be taken single-handedly. Behind every decision I was involved in — as initiator, rapporteur or author of a proposal — stand the votes of my colleagues. And there were just as many cases where I failed to persuade the majority.

So this is a report about my contribution to a shared result — about what I took responsibility for, where I put the most effort, and what, to my conviction, a High Council of Justice working in the interests of the whole of society should look like.

At the start, the system itself had to be restored

The first months of my term were rather peculiar. Until 12 January 2023 the HCJ had no quorum at all. The disciplinary function was restored only in December 2023. In other words, for a significant part of the time the body I had been elected to simply could not perform its key functions.

Once work resumed, I had several obvious priorities.

The High Qualification Commission of Judges had to be formed and judicial appointments resumed. Proper disciplinary procedures and the Disciplinary Inspectors Service had to be launched. Integrity vetting had to become real rather than formal. The HCJ had to do more than react to individual violations — it had to see systemic schemes. And, finally, the Council itself had to become far more transparent, more technological and capable of working with data.

For me all of this came together in one principle: a judge’s independence is impossible without accountability, just as genuine accountability is impossible without independence.

Courts need judges. But not at any price

One of the first major results was the formation of the new HQCJ.

Not all the candidates I supported became members of the Commission. And conversely — it included people I had not voted for. That is how a collegial body works. There is certainly something to criticise in the new HQCJ, but in my view it is nonetheless an institution of a different quality than before the reset.

The work of the HQCJ made it possible to resume competitions and the qualification assessment of judges. And that matters fundamentally. Judicial reform cannot consist solely of dismissing bad judges. The country has an enormous staffing shortage, and citizens wait years for their cases to be heard. The courts need new judges. But a staffing shortage cannot be an argument for lowering integrity standards.

At the same time, the real work of the HQCJ met serious resistance. The events of March 2025 were especially telling. On 14 March the State Bureau of Investigation searched the HQCJ premises and the home of the Commission’s deputy head, and its members received summonses for questioning. All of this happened immediately before the testing of judges scheduled for 17 March, among them judges of the liquidated District Administrative Court of Kyiv and of the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv. The HQCJ itself publicly assessed these actions as an encroachment on its institutional independence and an attempt to destabilise its work.

In my view this showed something simple: as soon as real vetting stops being a declaration and starts to threaten someone’s post and interests, the system’s resistance rises sharply. That is precisely why the independence of the HQCJ must not only be proclaimed — it must genuinely be defended.

In a little over two and a half years the HCJ, acting on HQCJ recommendations, submitted proposals to appoint 761 judges and refused in ten cases. I handled 53 HQCJ recommendations on candidates for first-instance and appellate courts. In 45 of them I proposed appointment. In eight I had well-founded doubts about integrity and proposed refusal. But only in four cases did my colleagues support me.

One telling case was the refusal to appoint the candidate Hanna Zhuk, among other things because of her anti-Ukrainian posts on social media. Another was the case of the candidate Oleksandr Vikhrov, where the refusal was based on doubts as to whether his assets matched his income, on unethical conduct, and on creative ways of obtaining a deferral from mobilisation (marrying his wife’s sister, probably to obtain the status of a father of many children). After the decision refusing his appointment, the Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of the Bar of Zakarpattia region, acting on an application by the Bar Council of Ukraine, held me — as an advocate — disciplinarily liable and issued a warning for acts I had performed while exercising the powers of an HCJ member and vetting a candidate for judicial office. The HCJ four times recognised such acts of bar self-government bodies as interference in my work, and on 9 July 2026 the Lviv District Administrative Court declared the commission’s decision unlawful and quashed it.

This story was a very vivid confirmation of how important it is that an HCJ member be confident he can put uncomfortable questions to a candidate and check dubious circumstances without adverse consequences for himself — and that where there are attempts to influence a member’s independence, there must be real and effective means of protection.

Another important step was the adoption of the Unified Integrity Assessment Indicators. They do not solve every problem, but they create the basis for a more predictable and uniform approach to assessing candidates for judicial office.

Yet over these years I became even more convinced that integrity cannot be reduced to formal compliance with criteria or the absence of a recorded violation. It shows in how honestly a candidate or judge explains the origin of their assets, whether they manipulate facts, whether they use their status for personal advantage, and how they behave when there is supposedly no formal prohibition.

That is why the Unified Integrity Indicators matter to me not as yet another checklist. They should become the basis of consistent practice, where the same facts receive the same assessment and integrity is treated as a mandatory, fundamental requirement.

Independence requires accountability

Over these years I devoted the most time to disciplinary practice.

My colleagues twice elected me secretary of the Second Disciplinary Chamber. That meant organising the chamber’s work and presiding over its sittings. In that time we held 130 sittings and considered more than 6,500 complaints.

I consider the launch of the Disciplinary Inspectors Service an important systemic result. I was actively involved in preparing the relevant legislative changes. The inspectors went through a demanding competition, obtained genuine functional independence, and today the quality of processing disciplinary complaints is higher. Although there is room for improvement here too — above all in the speed with which priority cases are handled.

Before the inspectors started work, their functions were in effect performed by HCJ members. In that period I personally examined 616 complaints. Disciplinary proceedings were opened in 53 of them, and as a result 35 judges were held liable. In seven cases the decision was dismissal.

Over the whole term I was rapporteur or co-rapporteur in the consideration of 1,323 disciplinary complaints. Disciplinary cases were opened against 97 judges. As a result, 55 judges were held disciplinarily liable and submissions to dismiss were made in respect of 13.

But for me disciplinary practice was never a contest in the number of judges punished. What matters far more is the standards of conduct each decision establishes.

You cannot see a violation and pretend it is not there

Separately, I argued very actively for the possibility of opening disciplinary cases on the disciplinary chamber’s own initiative. To my conviction, if while considering one complaint we see another obvious and serious violation, the HCJ cannot say: “no one complained about that separately, so we are turning a blind eye.”

That is not how an institution responsible for the authority of justice should work. So in the second chamber opening disciplinary proceedings on its own initiative has already become settled practice.

One of the first such stories was the case of Svitlana Kozina, a judge of the Rzhyshchiv court. While considering one complaint we saw an entire scheme: in 2019–2023 the judge heard 40 cases on applications by foreigners to establish the fact that their relatives had been born on Ukrainian territory 80 to 100 years earlier — something needed for simplified acquisition of Ukrainian citizenship. The foreigners deliberately “rented” housing in Rzhyshchiv in buildings that did not exist, so that they could file their applications specifically with Judge Kozina. The HCJ found systemic material procedural violations, the use of documents bearing signs of forgery and probable false witness testimony, all indicating that court decisions were being used for manifestly bad-faith purposes. The judge was ultimately dismissed. We also referred the matter to law enforcement, which registered criminal proceedings now at the investigation stage.

There were many such cases afterwards — those of judges Bahrii, Shevska, Tymoshenko, Boiko, Mazurenko and others. To my mind, it is precisely the ability to react to facts discovered on our own that allows the HCJ to fully perform one of its main functions — ensuring that judicial power operates on the basis of responsibility and accountability to society.

Another important case is that of Judge Dmytro Makharynets.

After police stopped his car he refused a breathalyser test and later refused to provide biological samples. But he submitted to the court a medical report stating that he was not intoxicated, which became the ground for closing the administrative offence case. During the disciplinary proceedings, however, it turned out that the doctor whose signature appeared on the document had not been on duty that day. In other words, the document bore signs of forgery, and the judge’s conduct in evading examination under the established procedure does not comply with the Code of Judicial Ethics.

The Second Disciplinary Chamber concluded that such conduct undermines the authority of justice and made a submission for dismissal. In February 2026 the HCJ dismissed the judge. It also referred the matter to law enforcement, which drew up an indictment against the judge on suspicion of using a forged document. The case is currently before the court.

This case matters to me as a standard too: a court decision closing an administrative case does not give a judge automatic immunity from having his conduct assessed in terms of judicial ethics and disciplinary liability.

The case of Serhii Boiko, a judge of the Poltava District Administrative Court, was of a different nature. It too was opened on my initiative in the course of considering another disciplinary case.

It concerned the use of a court decision in a case on determining a child’s place of residence in order to travel abroad while martial law restrictions were in force. The disciplinary proceedings established that, thanks to a manifestly artificial dispute and a simulation of justice, the judge gained the ability to travel abroad by using a court decision to circumvent the restrictions in force.

This case was important to me because it was not merely about creating artificial disputes and using the courts to get around the law. What is most dangerous for the authority of justice here is that the instrument was used by a sitting judge, who is supposed to be an example of law-abiding conduct and integrity.

The case of Kyrylo Harnyk, a judge of the liquidated District Administrative Court of Kyiv, was extraordinarily telling as well.

Police drew up a report against him for refusing to undergo testing for intoxication. The administrative case file reached the Pecherskyi District Court, was returned to the police for completion — and then effectively disappeared. The court claimed it had handed the file to a police officer. The police reported receiving an empty envelope by post. As a result it became impossible to hear the administrative case.

What matters here is that the disappearance of the file did not become a way of avoiding liability. The Second Disciplinary Chamber held Harnyk liable and imposed a submission for temporary suspension from administering justice for three months.

And the story of disappearing case files at the Pecherskyi court itself became grounds for a separate HCJ response and an inspection of how the court organises its work. Because if a case file can simply vanish precisely when a judge’s liability depends on it, that is no longer a problem of one case but of trust in the whole system.

Decisions that raise questions

Not all of my approaches won my colleagues’ support.

One of the examples I find hardest to understand is the case of Judge Kovhanych. He was stopped for speeding. He displayed his judicial ID, refused to comply with a lawful police demand, drove away from the stop and in doing so ran his car over a police officer’s foot.

I proposed dismissal.

But the majority of the chamber saw no disciplinary misconduct in these acts and closed the case.

I still do not understand how, in such circumstances, a disciplinary case against a judge could simply be closed. If such conduct by a holder of judicial power does not undermine the authority of justice, then where does the line of what is acceptable run?

I was struck even more by the decision to appoint Maksym Pampura head of the State Judicial Administration. There were known facts of his involvement in acts connected with an attempt to unlawfully influence a court decision — the very acts for which the HCJ had dismissed the previous head of the SJA, Oleksii Salnikov. To my conviction, those circumstances should have received the same principled assessment in Pampura’s case. Instead he won the competition and was appointed head of the SJA.

For me this is one of the hardest personnel decisions of this term to explain. You cannot convincingly demand integrity from judges and candidates for judicial office if a different standard is applied to the heads of judicial system bodies.

I also failed to understand some appointments. A report for drink-driving was drawn up against Anton Kotliar, a sitting judge and a candidate for an appellate court, back when he was a judge’s assistant. He told the police he lived in a dormitory, although he owned a flat at a different address. That way the case reached the court — and the judge whose assistant he was. The case was closed, and according to the court’s case management system data it was Kotliar himself who entered the closing ruling into the register. In other words, it is highly likely that the judge artificially routed the case to his own court and drafted the ruling in his own case himself. In response to my request he plainly lied that he had had no access to the case, and to my questions he could not recall exactly where and when he had lived in a dormitory. None of this prevented him from becoming an appellate judge.

Unfortunately, obvious untruths from candidates for judicial office — especially about their wealth and the value of their property — still pass through the HCJ fairly easily.

A telling example is the appointment of Judge Mariia Dubina. She claimed to have bought a flat in Kyiv at a price that plainly did not match the market. I found the owner’s advertisement offering that very flat for sale at four times the price. The candidate gave no convincing explanation of the difference, but for the majority of Council members that was no obstacle to her appointment.

It is precisely such cases that show why integrity cannot be reduced to the formal existence of a contract or a certificate. What matters is whether the candidate’s explanation is truthful, logical and able to withstand elementary verification. If obvious inconsistencies have no consequences, any integrity indicators risk remaining a mere declaration.

There was another problem too — recusals, which in certain cases effectively became a way of removing me from hearing them.

The starkest example is the case of Serhii Vovk, a judge of the Pecherskyi District Court. During the check I obtained additional material which, in my view, indicated new material violations, and I announced that I would initiate the opening of another set of disciplinary proceedings. After that I was recused from the case. I effectively lost any ability to influence its further consideration, and in the end the proceedings were closed.

I fully accept the need for recusal as a guarantee of impartiality. But when recusal is used after the rapporteur starts actively gathering additional evidence and asking uncomfortable questions, there is a risk of turning a procedural guarantee into a tool for removing an unwanted rapporteur.

The HCJ must not only punish. It must see systemic problems

One of the things I most wanted to change in the HCJ’s approach was to stop looking at every disciplinary case as an isolated incident.

Sometimes a single complaint reveals a problem far larger than the conduct of one particular judge.

That is how the practice of the HCJ responding on its own initiative to safeguard the authority of justice emerged. One of the first such decisions was a public address to judges calling for zero tolerance of corrupt practices among colleagues, following the story of Judge Lonskyi.

Then entire schemes began to surface.

Through individual disciplinary proceedings we saw mass artificial cases on establishing the birth of foreigners’ relatives in Ukraine in order to obtain citizenship, forged documents, disappearing court case files and other situations where a single disciplinary decision was plainly not enough.

But the biggest one for me was the case of mass decisions determining children’s place of residence and stripping mothers of parental rights.

When in 2024 I first saw signs of this scheme at the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi court, the scale looked so brazen that I immediately turned to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. After it was exposed in 2025 it became clear that the problem was far wider.

So we went beyond individual disciplinary cases. The HCJ required courts across Ukraine to provide information on this category of cases, began a systemic analysis and instructed the SJA to build automated tools for detecting risk indicators. More than 50 disciplinary cases came before the HCJ, over ten judges have already been held liable, and the number of such cases has fallen sharply.

That, in my view, is how a modern HCJ should act. Not merely punish judge A or judge B, but ask: does this case reveal a systemic vulnerability, and how do we ensure there is no next case like it?

You can demand openness from others only if you are open yourself

Another area I put a great deal of effort into is the transparency of the HCJ.

When I joined the Council, voting was anonymous. That was fundamentally unacceptable to me. A body that decides on the appointment, dismissal and liability of judges cannot hide from society who votes and how.

First the HCJ held a roll-call vote when appointing HQCJ members. Later we managed to secure legislative changes — and today voting in the HCJ is open and by name.

We resumed broadcasts of sittings, and later the obligation to broadcast was enshrined in law. The Second Disciplinary Chamber, by its own decision, broadcast its sittings in full. Reports on the automated allocation of cases began to be published.

Access to information changed too.

My first internal memo at the HCJ concerned members’ access to state registers. The law granted such a right, but at the start of the term our actual capabilities were very limited. Now the HCJ has access to practically all the key registers needed for integrity vetting, and a separate analytical capability for gathering information on candidates for judicial office has been created within the secretariat.

On my initiative the legislation was also changed so that every HCJ member can make requests independently — not only in cases where he is the rapporteur, but on all matters he has to vote on. I used this right hundreds of times, even when the rapporteur was not eager to obtain additional information. But that is the whole point: every HCJ member can obtain the information needed even if the rapporteur objects. It is a good safeguard against the concealment of information and against situations where the rapporteur is not particularly active in analysing a case properly.

Digitalisation is not about computers. It is about a different quality of justice

Digitalisation became a separate major area of work for me.

I chaired the HCJ’s Standing Committee on the UJITS. Together with colleagues, the SJA, the parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy and outside experts, we tried to move years of discussion about the “electronic court” into the realm of concrete architecture, technical documentation and actual development.

Together with Denys Maslov I co-chaired a working group that met regularly to oversee this process. As a result, the UJITS Concept and the key technical documentation were developed.

Because USAID, which funded a significant part of the development, ceased operations, we lost almost a year. At the same time, thanks to new support from SIDA and the Laboratory for Legislative Initiatives, the work was resumed. The technical requirements for developing the Core Services, Unified State Register of Enforcement Documents, Judicial Dossier and HR Management subsystems are now ready. The electronic document management system, which is the heart of the UJITS, is at the approval stage.

At the same time, far too many processes within the HCJ itself remain paper-based. It is embarrassing to admit, but at the HCJ — which ought to lead digital change — most decisions are still signed with a pen.

There are exceptions, though. On my initiative the Second Disciplinary Chamber moved entirely to signing decisions with a qualified electronic signature. I handled all my cases exclusively in electronic form and in four years did not sign a single request or letter on paper. In total I sent 2,885 electronic requests, letters and applications.

I actively proposed changing the HCJ’s internal rules and moving to fully digital document management. I wrote two official memos to the head of the HCJ about it, but so far we have not got beyond draft amendments to the instruction. What we did finally achieve was persuading the head and all my colleagues to create the post of deputy head of the HCJ secretariat for digital transformation. The selection for that post is under way right now. I very much hope that digitalisation work will become systemic and effective.

AI is no longer something to discuss — it is something to use

In the final months of the term we started one more area of work — the practical use of artificial intelligence.

Together with the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) we developed an experimental tool for analysing disciplinary practice, explored the capabilities of different AI models and began shaping the principles for using AI at the HCJ.

I am convinced that technology has already reached the level where AI can and should be used for more than searching for information. It can be a fully fledged assistant: helping to analyse large volumes of material, compare the parties’ arguments, check evidence and the consistency of case law and — particularly importantly — produce initial drafts of decisions, opinions, letters and other documents.

Of course, the final decision must remain with the human being who bears personal responsibility for it. But spending the hours of a highly qualified professional on the technical drafting of a document where AI can do much of the work is no longer conservatism — it is inefficiency.

That is why, in my view, the possibility of safe AI use should be built into the new UJITS from the outset.

A strategy that must outlive a single term

It is symbolic for me that one of the last decisions taken during my term was the approval, on 13 August 2026, of the Strategy of the High Council of Justice for 2026–2030, which I was actively involved in developing. The document was prepared with the participation of, among others, the Netherlands Council for the Judiciary.

What is especially important to me is that in the Strategy the HCJ takes on the ambition of being not a passive administrator but a leader of qualitative change in the judiciary.

It contains what I consistently argued for all these years: greater access to justice, the use of digital technology and the building of a genuine culture of integrity. Not integrity through fear of punishment, but an environment in which acting with integrity is the natural norm and a precondition of professional success.

I became increasingly convinced that a culture of integrity cannot be created by disciplinary sanctions, declarations or checks alone. All of that is necessary, but it is only the outer perimeter. A durable system emerges when honest conduct becomes a professional norm, and lying about assets, manipulation, mutual cover-ups or using one’s status for personal gain become unacceptable in reputational and career terms.

Such a culture has to be built through personnel and disciplinary decisions, internal ethical standards, openness, training and — most importantly — through the personal example of HCJ members and the heads of judicial governance bodies themselves. An institution cannot convincingly assess the integrity of others if it does not apply the same standards to itself.

What matters now is that the Strategy does not remain a handsome document, and that the next HCJ turns its goals into concrete decisions.

Behind the numbers there are always people

These four years were extremely intense.

Once the Council regained its powers I tried to make the most of the time I had. I usually started work around 8:30 and rarely finished before 21:00. In four years I took no more than twenty days of leave. I sent my last request as an HCJ member on 14 August at 23:15 — forty-five minutes before my powers expired.

This is not a model I recommend anyone follow, and it is certainly no feat. I simply understood that four years would pass very quickly and that there would be no second chance to use that time.

In parallel, personal information attacks continued almost throughout — from constant posts in anonymous Telegram channels to utterly absurd stories. It went as far as publications claiming I had supposedly caused a road accident while riding a bicycle drunk. Some advocates and former judges even ran a public countdown to the end of my term.

Over time I learned not to spend energy refuting every manipulation. When the attacks turned into legal or institutional pressure, as in the Vikhrov case, I responded. The rest was easier to take with a degree of irony and keep working.

The same bicycle helped keep up the pace — roughly 18 kilometres to work and back almost every day except in winter. By my count, more than 12,000 km in four years.

But it is far more important to speak about the people without whom most of what is described here simply would not exist.

I am deeply grateful to the HCJ members who supported my initiatives, to the staff of the secretariat and to my assistants — Olha Osaulenko, Vasyl Vasylash and Ihor Bilyk.

Vasyl Mykhailovych and I have a special history: he was once my teacher, and back then I certainly could not have imagined that many years later we would work together at the HCJ.

I want to single out Ihor Bilyk. He was not merely an assistant but often the author and implementer of highly creative and useful ideas. In matters of technology, digitalisation and AI, his knowledge, energy and ability to turn ideas into concrete technical solutions were among the main pillars of all this work. A significant part of what was achieved on the UJITS, digital transformation and new IT tools is his personal merit. The analytical unit owes a great deal to Ihor.

What did not work out

This is probably more important to say than to repeat the numbers again.

The HCJ consists of 19 people with different experience, views and ideas about the limits of the Council’s powers. Therein lies both the advantage and the difficulty of a collegial body.

There were dozens of occasions when I failed to persuade colleagues to support my proposals — on opening disciplinary cases, on the type of sanction, on personnel decisions or on internal reforms.

But it would be far too easy to explain everything by “not enough votes”.

In my view, this HCJ could have done more.

In some situations we should have acted faster. In others — more decisively. Our public positions could have been clearer, and our reactions to threats to independence or to the authority of justice more principled. We did not become the leader of judicial reform that, to my conviction, the High Council of Justice ought to be.

We should have demonstrated integrity standards by our own example. Tackled the excessive workload on the courts more actively. Secured a fair level of judicial remuneration, above all for first-instance judges. Been a stronger voice of the judiciary in relations with the other branches of power.

This is not only about the severity of decisions. Consistency matters more than severity: the same standards must apply to a candidate for judicial office, a sitting judge, a member of a judicial governance body and the head of the judicial administration. That is how trust in an institution is built, and a culture in which conduct with integrity is supported by the system rather than depending solely on the personal principles of individuals.

So far we have not become that.

At the same time, something else matters to me: this HCJ did not cross the key red lines and laid a foundation on which further building is possible.

So I cannot say “the reform is complete”. On the contrary. We are still far from even the middle of the road — but we are on the right road.

What must come next

First of all, it is necessary not merely to preserve the reformed procedures for forming the HCJ and the HQCJ, but also to clearly preserve the participation of international experts in the Ethics Council and in the Competition Commission for selecting HQCJ members.

It was precisely this design that served as one of the key safeguards against a return to corporate selection. Today the Ethics Council consists of six people, three of them nominated by international and foreign organisations; the same principle of equal participation of Ukrainian and international experts was applied when forming the Competition Commission for selecting the HQCJ.

I consider it essential to keep international experts in these procedures with real influence on the outcome, at least until Ukrainian institutions prove in practice that they are capable of guaranteeing the same level of independence and trust in selection on their own.

Large-scale filling of judicial vacancies must continue — but without turning judicial appointments into a conveyor belt where a staffing shortage justifies turning a blind eye to integrity problems.

Disciplinary practice must be made faster and at the same time more predictable. A judge must understand the standards of conduct, and a complainant must not wait years for a decision.

The HCJ must retain the ability and the readiness to respond on its own initiative when, in the course of its work, it sees obvious violations or signs of systemic schemes. An institution cannot demand society’s trust if it teaches itself not to notice what lies right in front of it.

The reform of the court network must be completed and centralised inter-court automated case allocation introduced, in order to even out workloads and give citizens real access to justice.

The HCJ must become a genuine centre of the judiciary’s digital transformation: electronic case files, structured data, automated analytics, a modern UJITS, artificial intelligence, and a minimum of manual and paper-based processes.

A separate task is to build a culture of integrity consistently across the whole judicial system. This is not another code or list of prohibitions. It is the same standards for everyone, zero tolerance of untruth and manipulation, real career consequences for conduct lacking integrity, and protection for people who act on principle. Integrity should not be conduct driven by fear of punishment, but a natural condition of professional success.

And finally, a culture of accountability must be developed within the judiciary itself.

Because independence without accountability very quickly turns into corporate insularity and breeds distrust. But accountability without independence turns the court into a dependent instrument.

Ukraine needs both of these at once — a judiciary that is independent and accountable.

That is what I saw as the main task when I took the oath four years ago.

Not everything I intended was achieved. In places I was wrong. Some things I would do differently today. On many questions I could not persuade the majority. Some important projects remain unfinished.

But society has the right to judge not our intentions but our results.

That is why I am working on a detailed open report — with figures, decisions, documents, statistics and links. Not so that people take my word for it. On the contrary — so that anyone can verify it.

And perhaps this is one more small change worth leaving behind.

When their powers end, a member of the High Council of Justice should do more than vacate the office and hand over the files to a successor.

They should answer publicly: what did you do with the trust and the powers you were given?

My answer to that question is this website.