AJEE`s Media Support of the International Conference

The reform of civil justice is an extremely important process for every state, as modern society needs a substantial upgrade of the phenomenon of law and the role of the state. The legislative changes taking place in many European countries today are related to justice, in particular, the implementation of civil justice, since every legitimate government seeks to ensure the most effective way of resolving disputes between its citizens and ensuring the proper functioning of the judiciary.

During the time passed since the proclamation of Ukraine's independence in 1991, several reforms of civil procedural law took place, in particular, the CPC of the UkrSSR was adopted on July 18, 1963 and acted until 2005, when the new CPC of Ukraine of 2004 entered into force. After 13 years, On March 23, 2017, the President of Ukraine submitted a Draft Law No. 6232 On the Amendments to the Commercial Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Code of Administrative Legal Proceedings of Ukraine and other Legislative Acts to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, which was adopted on October 3, 2017 and entered into force on December 15, 2017. This year, we witness the first anniversary of the application of the CPC of Ukraine in the wording of this Law dated October 03, 2017.

The purpose of the reform of civil justice in Ukraine was to determine the normative settlement of procedural mechanisms that should ensure effective, fair, impartial and timely protection of the rights and freedoms of a person in court. For its implementation, the new institutions, which, by the time, had not been familiar to the national civil procedural law, were introduced: the principle of proportionality and the differentiation of legal proceedings into general and simplified procedure for the consideration of small cases, cases of minor complexity and other cases, determined by law; the principle of case management and the authority to prevent the abuse of procedural rights etc., which confirms the significant impact of global trends on the development of the civil process in Ukraine.

In general, of significant value for modern national reforms are the well-known projects on the harmonization of civil procedural rules, such as the Storm Report, the Principles of the ALI-Unidroit Transnational Civil Procedure, as well as the mediation results of the project on the preparation of the Uniform European Civil Procedure Rules ELI-Unidroit. If the first steps in approximating the law in the field of justice were perceived as a scientific idea and a reference point for further development (in particular, the Storm project), then the subsequent projects were the result of business needs and the response to community demands (ALI-Unidroit and ELI-Unidroit projects). The common minimum standards for the civil process in the EU are already embodied in the EU bill.

Under such circumstances, the exchange of views and most successful practices for implementing effective civil justice instruments is extremely important, thus, organizing and conducting meetings among the European scholars and practitioners is very relevant. The International Scientific and Practical Conference “Small Claims Procedure: European and Ukrainian Experience”, which took place on November 23-24, 2018, was devoted to the issues of simplified proceedings, in which small cases, cases defined by law, and cases of low complexity were considered.

During the preparation and work of the conference, fruitful discussion was held on the experience of the leading European countries in the application of national procedures for solving small cases, as well as in the European small cases procedure and mediation results of the preparation of the unified European rules of the civil process ELI-Unidroit, in order to increase the accessibility and approximation of justice in Ukraine to the European standards. Among the scholars who took part in the event are prof. E. Silvestri (Italy), prof. С.Н. Van Ree (the Netherlands), Prof. Dr. A. Uzelac (Croatia), Dr. U. Mockel (Germany), Dr. V. Vebraite (Lithuania), as well as co-organizers and colleagues from Poland: prof. R. Flejszar, Dr. M. Malczyk and others.

The discussion was joined by representatives of the judiciary, who prepared reports on the results of the practice of application of the provisions of the current legislation, obtained during the first year of application of the simplified procedure for solving small cases. The most controversial issues raised in these reports include the review of judicial decisions adopted in the simplified procedure, both court decisions and court rulings, criteria for defining categories of cases involving minor complexity etc.

The co-organizers of the conference want to express their sincere gratitude to all the participants who joined this conference, provided scientific works for publication in the collection, as well as delivered speeches and took active part in the discussion!

We sincerely thank everyone who joined the organization and holding of the conference for help! In particular, the staff of the department of civil process of the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, as well as colleagues and students of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University and Jagiellonian University in Krakow!

We hope that the knowledge and experience gained will be useful to anyone interested in civil justice, its actual reforms in Ukraine and the experience of European states!






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