Constitutional Court of Ukraine (Конституційний Суд України; Konstytutsiinyi Sud Ukrainy; КСУ; CCU). The sole court of constitutional jurisdiction in Ukraine which came into operation in 1996 immediately following adoption of the new Constitution of Ukraine by the Supreme Council of Ukraine. Its main task is to interpret the Constitution and to render judgments on the constitutionality of laws and other acts of government. Decisions of the CCU are binding, final, and not subject to appeal. Reforms introduced in 2017 served to broaden the scope of the Constitutional Court’s role in the political system of Ukraine.
The CCU is comprised of 18 judges, six each appointed through a competitive process by the Supreme Council of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine, and the Council of Judges. They serve for a single non-renewable nine-year term and have immunity from legal liability for their decisions. Judicial independence is jealously guarded by its incumbents and is intended to be assured by entitlement to one-half of normal salary upon retiring from the bench.
A major reform in 2017 was the introduction of the constitutional complaint option open to every Ukrainian citizen. This had unforeseen and undesirable consequences given the political environment in Ukraine. Thus in response to a petition from 47 parliamentarians the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in October 2020 ruled unconstitutional the entire system of electronic reporting of assets, the maintenance of such registers, and the prosecution of suspected corrupt officials whose means exceeded their salaries. This included knowingly providing false information. The decision severely damaged the state’s anti-corruption effort, in particular the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP) and National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). Not only did the justices go beyond the terms of the petition, but they were in a conflict of interest as beneficiaries of their own decision. This was not the first such instance. In February 2019, the Constitutional Court struck down the law which criminalized illicit enrichment.
In this way, the Constitutional Court functioned as a legislative rather than purely judicial body, unconstrained and unaccountable. In 2010, it had overturned the 2004 changes to the Constitution of Ukraine in an unwarranted manner and allowed individual parliamentarians—rather than whole party caucuses (fractions)—to form a majority, as constitutionally required. These actions facilitated the authoritarian rule of President Viktor Yanukovych. The CCU began to be seen as a super-parliament.
Responding to the CCU’s 2020 decision, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the court’s Chairman, Oleksandr Tupytsky, suspended the other judges, and created a commission on legal reform. After Tupytsky, charged with bribing a witness to give false testimony, fled the country, Justice Serhii Holovaty was appointed Acting Chairman. During wartime when constitutional changes cannot be made the Court acted with more restraint. In January 2025, Oleksandr Petryshyn, appointed by Zelensky in November 2021, was named as Chairman of the CCU. At the time there were seven vacancies, indicative of the political battles surrounding such appointments. Ukraine continues to struggle to bring its judiciary, including the CCU, into line with the standards of the European Union.
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Bohdan Harasymiw
[This article was written in 2025.]