A Meeting on the Legislative Regulation of Legal Education was Held in OP with the Participation of the Experts of EU Project Pravo-Justice

The meeting on legislative regulation of legal education took place at the Office of the President of Ukraine. Members of the respective working group, including EU Pravo-Justice Project experts Virgilijus Valančius, Viacheslav Tolkovanov, Svitlana Khyliuk, Oleksii Kot, Nataliia Kuznetsova and Andrii Boiko met with Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Iryna Mudra to discuss further work on implementing the legal education reform in line with the recommendations made in the European Commission's report on Ukraine.

MPs Mykola Stefanchuk and Yuliia Hryshyna, co-chairs of the working group on reforming legal education under the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy, also participated in the meeting.

During the meeting, Andrii Boiko, Doctor of Law, Professor of the Department of Criminal and Criminal Procedure Law at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, noted that ensuring the quality of legal education is a characteristic of a democratic society.

"The proper functioning of the national legal system and being able to guarantee the right to a fair trial largely depend on the efficiency of legal practitioners, at least what concerns performing the functions of judge, prosecutor, advocate and notary," he said.

According to him, Ukraine has already introduced a number of arrangements to improve legal education. These include, in particular, better access to legal education, approval of educational standards, introduction of the Unified State Qualification Exam, etc.

"Now we need to build a comprehensive model of legal education based on the concept of a unified legal practitioner that would ensure quality legal education in line with the requirements of a democratic society," підкреслив Andrii Boiko.

It should be mentioned that in its Report on Ukraine in the framework of the EU Enlargement Package published in November 2023, the European Commission stressed that high-quality and non-corrupt legal education plays a crucial role in consolidating the rule of law and fulfilling EU membership obligations, and therefore called on Ukraine to intensify reform efforts in this area.

In turn, in December 2023, the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy established a working group on legal education reform, which brought together legislators, judges, government officials, academics, as well as representatives of civil society and international technical assistance projects, including EU Project Pravo-Justice.

The Project experts are currently working on the draft Concept of Legal Regulation of Higher Legal Education and Primary Access to the Legal Profession in Ukraine, as well as the Concept of the Law on Higher Legal Education.