On 9 November 2023, a pilot training course for administrative court judges was launched in Lviv. The course programme aimed to address the application of the principle of legal certainty in administrative proceedings, including in the context of legitimate expectations of social benefits.
Andrii Nyzhnyi, Senior Partner at Hillmont Partners and Head of Litigation, is on the team of course developers and lecturers. During the pilot event, he delivered an interactive lecture on “res judicata” as an element of legal certainty. In his communication with the course participants, he explained the meaning of the “red judicata” concept, analysed the conditions when courts may violate it, and gave examples of cases of incorrect application by Ukrainian courts of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law.
Other course units covered legal certainty as an element of the rule of law, application of the principle of legal certainty in administrative proceedings, legitimate (lawful) expectations and restrictions on social benefits in the context of legitimate expectations, as well as the principle of legal certainty in the case law of the ECtHR.
The development of the course began in 2021 with the assistance of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine involving judges of district administrative courts, administrative courts of appeal, the Supreme Court, as well as Ukrainian and European experts. Among the participants of the pilot programme were judges of first and appellate instances of administrative courts located in the territory of the Eighth Appellate District. This series of lectures was the first training event for judges to focus on legal certainty as one of the elements of law, rather than the rule of law in general.
