‘Shaming’ the Court: Ukraine’s Constitutional Court and the Politics of Constitutional Law in the Post-Euromaidan Era

Abstract

Since the Euromaidan events of 2014, Ukraine has embarked on a reformist trajectory to ‘Europeanize’ the country and deliver the promise of good governance to its citizens. The series of legislative and public policy reforms that followed had financial and ideological support from Ukraine’s Western partners. To date, studies have focused on documenting and analyzing the course of international donors’ involvement in Ukraine’s reforms. What is lacking, however, is an analysis of the many different domestic responses to external pressure from donors to implement reforms. Examining Ukraine’s Constitutional Court case law on judicial self-government and anti-corruption from 2020, this article examines this court’s legal response to the politics of reform led by international donors and domestic actors in Ukraine. It reveals the problematic nature of constitutional decision-making in a country that has recently been facing considerable pressure from political incumbents and civil society. The article identifies a pattern that characterizes the political process (a ‘troubled nexus’) around the reforms in Ukraine and draws a parallel between Ukrainian developments and the situation in Moldova and Georgia, two countries that have been confronted with similar reform challenges since the enactment of the respective Association Agreements with the EU in 2016.