Three international organizations have provided the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine with information on 12 candidates for selection to the Public Council of International Experts (PCIE), which will assist the Commission in conducting the second competition for the positions of judges of the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC), announced by the decision of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine
№ 145/zp-23 of November 23, 2023.
The official list of experts recommended by international organizations for appointment as members of the Public Council of International Experts was received by the Commission from the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine on March 25, 2024.
The purpose of the PCIE is to evaluate the integrity of candidates for appointment as judges of the High Anti-Corruption Court and to assist the Commission in preparing relevant decisions.
The candidates are recommended by the European Union (EU), the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The proposed experts have a background as judges, prosecutors, lawyers and related experience in Estonia, the Netherlands, the United States of America, South Africa, the Republic of Slovenia, Ireland, Lithuania, Switzerland, Canada and Finland.
The letter states that the international organizations tried to “maintain a good balance between adjudication and prosecutorial experience while ensuring a diverse geographical background and gender balance”.
“The proposed candidates satisfy all relevant eligibility criteria and other requirements as contained in the law on HACC. They possess substantial professional experience in proceedings related to anti-corruption, enjoy impeccable business standing, have high professional and moral qualities, and hold respect in society”, the letter states.
Part three of Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine “On the High Anti-Corruption Court” stipulates that a candidate to the PCIE must meet the following criteria: have an impeccable business reputation, high professional and moral qualities, public authority, and at least five years of experience in other countries in providing procedural guidance, supporting public prosecution in court or conducting proceedings in corruption-related cases.
Members of the Public Council of International Experts are appointed for a two-year term and cannot be reappointed.
“The Commission will ensure the most transparent procedure for the appointment of PCIE members and is convinced that the elected members will be able to provide effective cooperation in today’s extremely difficult conditions,” said the Deputy Chairman of the Commission, Ruslan Sydorovych. He also assured that in selecting six PCIE members out of the 12 candidates proposed, the Commission will be strictly guided by the criteria set out in the Law of Ukraine “On the High Anti-Corruption Court”.
Please be informed, that in December 2023, with the assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Commission sent letters of invitation to four international organizations (Council of Europe, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF), European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF)), identified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, with which Ukraine officially cooperates in the field of preventing and combating corruption, to submit proposals for candidates for appointment to the Public Council of International Experts.
List of candidates for the Public Council of International Experts:
- Norman Aas is a lawyer from Estonia. He has a BA in Law from the University of Tartu, Estonia (1998) and a master’s degree in law from the University of Greifswald, Germany (2001). From 1997 to 2017, he held different positions at the Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Justice of Estonia. Has expertise in the fields of criminal law and criminal proceedings, including investigation of economic offenses and offenses relating to public office. As Prosecutor General of Estonia from 2005 to 2014, he was responsible for organizing the prosecution of large-scale corruption offenses. From 2005 to 2014, he was also a member of the Council for the Administration of Courts in Estonia. One of whose tasks was to assess the suitability of candidates to become a justice in the Supreme Court. At the same time, he was the Council’s chair for the appointment of prosecutors, and during his tenure considered hundreds of candidates competing for various high-level judicial offices. He is a lecturer on criminal law and criminal proceedings at Tallinn University and co-author of commentaries on several laws. Currently, he works as a private lawyer serving as a partner of a private law firm.
- Robert Hein Broekhuijsen is a lawyer from the Netherlands. He graduated from Leiden University in 1982. From 1982 to 2003 he was a Marine and Insurance attorney working worldwide. From 1999, he was a managing partner of DLA law firm in the Netherlands, and from 2003, he worked as an executive board member of DLA LLP. From 2005 to 2012, he served as Special Prosecutor in the Serious Fraud Office of the Dutch Prosecution Service in charge of various major fraud, corruption, and money laundering investigations. As lead prosecutor, he successfully prosecuted the most significant corruption case ever in the Netherlands. He worked on multiple complex international fraud and corruption cases in the U.S., UK, India, and the Middle East, provided expert assistance on the issues of money laundering, assets tracing, and combating corruption to the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR), a partnership of the World Bank and UNODC; provided advice and training on investigating and fighting corruption in Moldova, Jordan, and Thailand programs. Presently, he is founder of a law firm, advising corporations, authorities, and countries on corruption-related issues, performing investigations into corruption, and defending corporations against corruption charges. He also works as a judge in the Disciplinary Court of Appeal of the Dutch Bar. Since 2021, he has been a member of the Selection Commission for the Selection of Candidates for the Positions of Members of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine.
- Mary K. Butler is a prosecutor from the United States. She graduated from Vassar College and the University of Wisconsin Law School. She is the Chief of the International Unit of the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS) of the U.S. Department of Justice. Before coming to MLARS in July 2014, Mary worked for many years as an anti-corruption prosecutor in specialized anti-corruption units in the Justice Department in Washington, DC, and in the United States Attorney’s Office in Miami, Florida. As a career anti-corruption prosecutor, she prosecuted many lobbyists, state and local law enforcement officers, and public officials at all levels of government, including a U.S. Congressman. She worked for 11 years in the Public Integrity Section at Main Justice and for 12 years in the United States Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida in Miami. At the USAO Miami, she served as a trial attorney in general crimes and economic crimes units and as the Chief of the Public Corruption Section Chief. She also served for three years as a Resident Legal Advisor in Ukraine in the Justice Department’s Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training.
- Hermione Theresa Cronje is a lawyer from South Africa. She possesses a master’s in public administration (MPA) from Harvard University (Kennedy School of Government) (2010) and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of Cape Town (1996). From 1998 to 2012, she worked for the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa, including as a Head of the Western Cape’s regional office of the asset forfeiture unit responsible for all asset forfeiture cases instituted in the region. From 2019 to 2022, she served as an Investigating Director of the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa, worked on establishing an investigative and prosecutorial capacity within the National Prosecuting Authority. She was tasked with investigating and prosecuting serious, complex, and high-profile public and private sector corruption. Also, she brought before the court those most responsible for the corrupt capture of state institutions, including the police, prosecution, and intelligence agencies, and State-Owned Entities (SOEs) in the context of immense public pressure to achieve accountability for large-scale looting of the South African public purse. She is an expert for the Global Operational Network of Anticorruption Law Enforcement Authorities (GlobE Network) and Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) (a partnership of the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)).
- Damijan Florjančič is a retired judge from the Republic of Slovenia. In 1978, he received a law degree from the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, and his master’s degree in criminal procedural law from the same faculty in 2005. At the beginning of his career, Florjančič worked as a deputy public prosecutor at the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Koper. He became a judge in 1986 at the Basic Court in Koper (later the District Court in Koper), where he served as court president. He then worked as a senior judge at the High Court in Koper and was assigned to the Ministry of Justice. During Slovenia’s presidency of the Council of the EU, Florjančič chaired the EU’s working group for substantive criminal law and served as co-chair of the working group for criminal procedural law. He was later appointed the Judicial Training Center director at the Ministry of Justice. He served as justice at the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia, assigned to the criminal department, and as president of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia until February 2023. He is a member of the awards commission in the office of the President of the Republic of Slovenia and chairman of the commission for the legal state exam for judicial function at the Ministry of Justice.
- James Hamilton is a retired prosecutor from Ireland. He received a post-graduate degree as barrister-at-law in King’s Inns at Dublin University in 1973 and a BA degree in History and Political Science from Trinity College at Dublin University in 1972. He was called to the Bar of Ireland in 1973. He was Director of Public Prosecutions of Ireland (head of the independent prosecution service of Ireland) from 1999 to 2011. He was a legal adviser in the Office of the Attorney General from 1981 to 1999 and, from 1995 to 1999, served as permanent head of that office. He was a senior member of the Irish legal advisory team in the negotiations that led to the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in 1998. He was the Irish member or substitute member of the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission from 1998 to 2014, has acted as a rapporteur on many opinions, most recently on Kosovo and Bulgaria in 2023 and 2024. These opinions include general reports on the independence of the prosecution service (2010) and on parliamentary immunities (2014). He was an Irish expert on the GRECO team for the fourth-round evaluations of Spain (2014) and Montenegro (2015). In 2012, he took part in the Phase 3 assessment review of Greece under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. He also contributed to the OECD studies on the Latvia Prosecutor’s Office (2021) and on the independence of prosecutors in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Asia Pacific (2020). He completed a three-year term as President of the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) in October 2013, and has been Chair of its Senate since 2023. He has also been Chair of Ireland’s Advisory Council against Economic Crime and Corruption since May 2022.
- Gabriele Juodkaitė-Granskienė is a judge from Lithuania. She has a law degree from Vilnius University (1996) and a PhD in Criminal Law, “Formation and Evaluation of Forensic Conclusions”, (2003). Starting in 1996 she worked in the Forensic Science Centre of Lithuania, being its director from 2004 to 2017. Since 2017, she has served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, including as the Chief Justice of the Criminal Division since 2022. Since 1997, she has also been a lecturer on forensic examination, evidence collection and proving procedures, and criminal procedure at Vilnius University’s Faculty of Law.
- John J. O’Sullivan is a retired judge from the United States. In 1985, he received a Juris Doctorate degree, from the University of Miami. He graduated with a BA from the State University of New York in Albany. He served as a Magistrate Judge from 1999 to 2022. Before being appointed a Magistrate Judge, he was the Chief of the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. He joined the United States Attorney’s Office in 1986. He served as Chief of the Narcotics Section, Senior Litigation Counsel, and Deputy Chief and Acting Chief of the Economic Crimes Section. He prosecuted several significant public corruption cases involving police officers, government officials, and judges, including Operation Courtroom, a judicial corruption investigation, and the prosecution of several state judges and attorneys. In August 1995, he was appointed Deputy Independent Counsel in the late Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown’s investigation and served in that capacity for one year. From 1978 to 1985, he was a Special Agent with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service. He has lectured at the International Law Enforcement Academies in Budapest, Hungary, and Gaborone, Botswana, the National Advocacy Center, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the Federal Bureau of Investigation Academy, and the Inspector General’s Academy.
- Peter F. Schenck is a retired prosecutor from the United States. He served 33 years in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, prosecuting principally political corruption and white-collar crime and serving as Section Chief, Chief of the Criminal Division, and First Assistant United States Attorney. He has a J.D. from Duke University School of Law (1974) and a B.A. from Dartmouth College (1969). From 2005 to 2009, he was seconded to the Department of Justice’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) for overseas assignments in Romania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Kosovo.
- Jean-Bernard Schmid is a lawyer and financial crime expert from Switzerland. From 1998 to 2017, he held elected office in Geneva. He specialized as a public prosecutor and investigating magistrate, specializing in white-collar crime, international criminal proceedings, asset recovery, and mutual legal assistance. He worked on large-scale corruption cases with his Swiss and international colleagues, implicating heads of states and high-profile kleptocrats. He participated in numerous conferences and workshops on AML/CFT, mutual legal assistance, and asset recovery, notably for the Organization on Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Bank, including its Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR), and similar bodies. He currently works as a substitute judge for the Penal Court of Geneva and a part-time investigator for Geneva’s Department of Security. He is also Counsel at the Geneva offices of CMS von Erlach Partners SA, an international law firm.
- Jessica Lott Thompson is a lawyer from Canada. In 2003, she received a Bachelor of Laws LL.B, from the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, and a Master of Laws LL.M. (Constitutional Law) from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Canada, in 2017. From 2008 to 2014, she served as a Federal Criminal Prosecutor in the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, where she was responsible for criminal and administrative law litigation. From 2015 to 2020 she was Director of Human Rights for Yukon, responsible for the administration of the Yukon Human Rights Commission and investigation of complaints against government, business and organizations. She currently works as a senior lawyer in criminal law, administrative and constitutional law, human rights, and law reform and also is the Chair of the War Crimes Accountability Working Group of the Ukrainian Canadian Bar Association, and an OSCE-ODIHR International Election Observer. From 2017 to 2019, she was appointed by the Minister of Justice of Canada to serve as a Member of the Federal Judicial Advisory Committee for Yukon. In that role, she was responsible for assessment, evaluation, consultation, and document review, and recommendations to the federal Minister of Justice on Superior Court Level judicial appointments, according to constitutional, ethical, and policy requirements.
- Timo Vuojolahti is a retired Court of Appeal judge from Finland. He has a master’s degree in law from the University of Helsinki (1985). During his law studies he occasionally served as an acting sheriff/prosecutor. After the court traineeship he served as a Court of Appeal legal officer and judge in District Courts (1988-1999). From 1999 to 2008 he worked as a referendary and referendary counsel in the Supreme Court of Finland, from 2009 to 2012 he worked as a Court of Appeal judge. From 2012 to 2015 he served in EULEX Kosovo as an international criminal judge (first Mitrovica District Court, then the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court). After Kosovo he worked in Finland as a District Court judge (2015-2020) and Court of Appeal judge (2021-2023). He retired in October 2023.