Gender sensitive justice during wartime: towards people-centred approach

The article highlights the challenges Ukrainian judges face during wartime via prism of gender sensitivity. The author pointed out that for the judiciary to become gender sensitive, judges should be able to recognize gender aspects of a particular case. Using Carvalho Pinto and Airey judgements the author not only focuses on certain ECtHR cases as gender-sensitive but also demonstrates the importance of statistics and research data used by the ECtHR while giving judicial reasoning. Based on the data available due to the 4th nationwide study “What Ukrainians Know and Think of Human Rights” (2016-2023) the author shows certain gender differences regarding the weight of specific human rights and manifestations of the violations. In particular, men more often than women had faced violations of the right to freedom and security of person and unjustified violence by the police while women were more likely than men to refer to violations of the right to social security. Also, women turned out to be more passive and less successful than men in protecting their rights. Besides, there is a difference in the legal needs of women and men according to the analysis of applications from clients who received free legal aid in 2023. Thus, during the war old challenges were exacerbated and new ones emerged. The author pointed out some gender-related disputes (cases) adjudicated recently. Since mobilization primarily concerns men of a certain age, therefore, in order to postpone military service (as the constitutional duty) a vast majority of men opted to care for their relatives, despite that caregiving work was an uncommon characteristic of Ukrainian male behavior. The author also emphasizes that traditionally data collection within Ukrainian courts is file-oriented instead of people-oriented. Therefore, the author suggested using an approach from the OECD Recommendation on Access to Justice and People-Centred Justice Systems, including the number of new concepts, previously unknown to domestic legal science and practice, such as “justice pathways”, “legal and justice needs” or “people-centred justice data”.