Ukraine holding war criminals to account despite judicial system woes: chief justice

Justice Vsevolod Kniaziev said the system is doing its best to adapt in an attempt to fill institutional gaps and hold offenders accountable for war crimes.

Violence in Ukraine has crippled the country’s judicial system, the chief justice of its Supreme Court says, and left it struggling to handle tens of thousands of criminal reports arising from the war.

In a presentation given to an Ottawa conference on Monday, Justice Vsevolod Kniaziev said that more than a tenth of Ukrainian courthouses have been damaged or destroyed since Russia‘s invasion of the country began earlier this year, and judges are facing threats from Russian occupiers.

But he said the system is doing its best to adapt in an attempt to fill institutional gaps and hold offenders accountable for war crimes.

“Our lives have changed a lot. It is now divided into before and after the outbreak of war,” Kniaziev told a gathering of the International Organization for Judicial Training.

“We wake up early and read the news quickly. We do not go to sleep without reading the latest news from the general staff,” he said, referring to the Ukrainian military.

He pointed to the latest statistics from Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office, which show that more than 42,000 war crimes perpetrated by Russian actors have been registered in the country’s criminal justice system since the war began, along with some 80,000 crimes related to national security.

As the system tries to keep up with the surge in reports, it has suffered major losses, Kniaziev said.

Missiles and bombs have left 11 per cent of court premises damaged or completely destroyed, he said, and judges in occupied territories are being threatened by Russian authorities.