Judicial training in the context of the Ukraine accession to the EU

Due to the beginning of the negotiation process regarding Ukraine’s accession to the EU, new challenges have appeared before judicial education. The author analyses two key challenges, namely, the first – how to incorporate EU law in the content of judicial training, the second – how to implement the training evaluation system in accordance with the methodology recommended by the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN). Considering that the current Ukrainian legislation obliges each judge to maintain his qualifications at the appropriate level necessary for administration of judiciary, and at the same time provides for the right of a judge to raise his professional level, therefore, EU law as a new topic can be included as an element of both types of continuous judicial training – as part of compulsory programs for judges as well as optional periodical training. Also, it is appropriate to rely on effective previous experience of incorporation of the ECHR and the ECtHR case law and develop the so-called a «basic» course on EU law (for different jurisdictions, if needed), supplemented by specialized ones. Preference should be given to the topics specified in the negotiation Chapter 23 «Judiciary and fundamental rights», which is a priority in the process of Ukraine's accession of membership in the European Union. EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Directives should also be incorporated into training modules (to the content of already developed courses) on various areas of law where relevant, following the example of HELP courses, which are available on the HELP platform in a self-study format; it is worth considering the issue of their institutionalization in the Ukrainian judicial training. Regarding the second key challenge, it is recommended to develop new tools for evaluating the professional training of judges based on the four-level system for evaluating the effectiveness of training (based on the so-called «Kirkpatrick model»), which is used by the EJTN. Key words: justice, fundamental rights, EU law, judicial training, HELP courses.