Second Steering Committee Meeting of the EU/CoE Joint Project “Consolidation of Justice Sector Policy Development in Ukraine” took place in Kyiv, where the achieved results of the project for the period from September to December 2015 were presented, objectives and expected results for 2016 discussed.

Representatives of the Council of Europe, European Union Delegation to Ukraine, Presidential Administration of Ukraine, judiciary, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine, Ukrainian National Bar Association of Ukraine, State Security Service of Ukraine, Ombudsman Office in Ukraine, civil societies, other partners of the project as well as international projects, participated in the event.

Mr. Alexandru Albu, Head of Operations Section 1 "Good Governance and Democratisation”, European Union Delegation to Ukraine stressed the importance of supporting Ukraine in monitoring of the justice sector reforms and in reporting on the findings of the monitoring. Mr. Alessandro Savaris, Head of Operations, Council of Europe Office in Ukraine emphasised that along with supporting the legislative and institutional changes as well as building the capacity of the main actors of the justice sector, the project activities will focus on supporting the justice sector reform implementation progress review. Mr. Kostyantyn Krasovsky, Chief of the Head Department for Legal Policy of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, emphasized the importance of a comprehensive reform of the justice sector and of cooperation and coordination of the actions with international partners. Mr. Serhiy Petukhov, Deputy Ministry of Justice of Ukraine for European Integration, underlined the complex nature of the justice sector reform and the priority of judicial reform.

The project aims to provide further recommendations to Ukrainian stakeholders in 2016 ensuring that the reform process itself and the resulting design of the justice sector are in line with Council of Europe norms and standards. It will also support Ukrainian stakeholders in the process of coordinating and monitoring of the implementation of the reforms. The project will focus further on fostering the active participation of relevant civil society organisations or actors in the justice sector reform by organizing discussion fora, meetings and other events to review the reform process.