March 2008

At the Conference Table (from left to right), Soren Lyager, Vice-President of the Danish Bar and Law Society, Danish delegate on the Deontology Committee of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE); Shelley Wieck, Country Director, ABA Rule of Law Initiative Ukraine; (speaking) Mykola Onishchuk, Minister of Justice of Ukraine

The ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) conducted a conference in Ukraine on the difficult issue of the unification of the legal profession and creation of an independent, self-governing Ukrainian Bar Association. Through a comparative analysis of international and European models, as well as an overview of the current best practices and foreign experience, leading experts from Lithuania, Armenia, Great Britain and Denmark provided their expertise on countries at different stages of economic and legal development. The outcome of the conference is the approval of a set of recommendations on mechanisms for unifying the legal profession and regulating the market of legal services to be reflected in the new law on the Bar.  

The unification of the legal profession and the creation of standards for all legal practitioners is one of the most hotly disputed issues within the legal profession. Since currently there is no unified Bar Association in Ukraine and the existing law on the Bar is not fully compliant with international and European standards, ABA ROLI has been asked to help the Ministry of Justice facilitate the establishment of a unified, competent and independently functioning Bar Association through the development of a single draft law on the Bar. To that end, ABA ROLI held this dialog between legal institutions, law firms, various legal organizations and lawyers. Partners included the Ministry of Justice, the National Commission on Strengthening Democracy and Promoting Rule of Law, and the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE).

The most successful result of the conference was the ability to bring together representatives of all of the interested institutions for a constructive dialog on this difficult and, frequently, emotional issue. As Mykola Onishchuk, Minister of Justice of Ukraine, stated, “This conference showed us that Ukrainian lawyers have already approached the high level of corporate awareness, and it gives us hope that the process of bar reform in Ukraine is getting more and more constructive.” The participants agreed on the necessity of legal profession unification, as well as on the common approach to the mechanisms for such unification.

These proposed mechanisms are in line with existing International and European standards. After the conference, Yuriy Miroshnichenko, People’s Deputy of Ukraine and author of the draft law on the Bar said, “I’m deeply satisfied with the constructivism shown by participants of the conference and I’m open to collaboration on the way to common revision of provisions in the draft law I’ve submitted to Verkhovna Rada.” The next step for ABA-Ukraine will be the coordination of the leading institutions’ activities and the elaboration of a unified approach on the remaining disputed issues.

For more information, please contact Darina Tolkach <dtolkach@abaceeli.kiev.ua>.