Budgeting Policies and Practices in the Ukrainian Judiciary and the United States Judiciary: A Comparative Review

The U.S. judicial system is governed by the Judicial Conference of the United States (JCUS), a body chaired by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and comprising the chief judges of all circuit courts of intermediate appeals. The JCUS is recognized as the official policy-making body of the federal judicial system and exercises independent authority relating to the federal courts except for the Supreme Court, which governs and manages itself. The JCUS is supported by two subordinate organizational structures: a framework of permanent committees and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts (AOUSC). The AOUSC Director reports to the Chief Justice and the activities of the AOUSC are supervised by the JCUS. Staff of the various divisions of the AOUSC provide technical, substantive, and administrative support to JCUS committees, including the Budget Committee that focuses exclusively on matters relating to the budgetary and financial operations of the judicial system. In contrast, the Ukrainian judicial system has several governance structures as specified in the July 2010 Law on the Judiciary and the Status of Judges (Law). These include the Congress of Judges of Ukraine (CJU), the highest governance body, comprising one judge from each oblast, the cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol, and the autonomous Republic of Crimea, as well as three judges from each of the three specialized high courts and three judges each from the Constitutional and Supreme Courts. All judges serving as delegates of the CJU are elected. The CJU meets every two years in regular session and may be convened by the Council of Judges of Ukraine in extraordinary session. Another structure is the Council of Judges of Ukraine (Council) that assumes the day-to-day leadership of the judicial system between sessions of the CJU. The Council comprises 11 members elected by the CJU and is assisted in its work by three subordinate councils for the general jurisdiction courts, the commercial courts, and the administrative courts. Unlike the JCUS, the Council does not rely on a framework of limited jurisdiction committees or other special judicial support bodies to inform its thinking in critical areas that fall within its broad authority and responsibility. As a consequence, its leaders are compelled to stay abreast of all such areas largely on their own, without the benefit of the research and advisory functions of the committees that support the JCUS. In the view of the author, the Council should consider developing a committee-like framework to ease that burden. The role of judicial leadership in the budgeting and financial management processes differs between the two systems. In the U.S., the AOUSC prepares the annual budget request for the judicial system by assembling statistical data and budget requests received from each court. It then applies various work-measurement- and case-weighting-based formulae to prepare a consolidated recommended budget, which it forwards to the JCUS for approval. Responsibility for approving the judicial system's annual budget rests with the JCUS. In Ukraine, the State Judicial Administration (SJA) has two primary components: the SJA Headquarters in Kyiv and the territorial SJA offices in each oblast, Kyiv and Sevastopol cities, and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The SJA is responsible for managing the budgeting and financial management processes of the Ukrainian judicial system. However, the author recommends that the CJU and Council create a framework of permanent judicial committees supported by the SJA with specified jurisdictions and rotating terms of membership to serve as research and advisory bodies to assist the CJU and Council with their numerous and complex responsibilities. The Ukrainian and United States judicial systems have distinct budgeting policies and practices that reflect their governance structures and institutional frameworks. Understanding these differences is essential for identifying areas of improvement and developing effective strategies for strengthening the independence and accountability of the judicial systems.