Gianni Buquicchio leaves the post of President of the Venice Commission amid questions about the openness of his work

Claire Bazy Malaurie, member of the Constitutional Council of France since 2010, has been elected President of the Venice Commission, succeeding Gianni Buquicchio, who has been President since 2009. Her two-year term begins 10 December, and she will be eligible for re-election in 2023.

It is noteworthy that Buquicchio served as president of the Venice Commission for a fairly long time. And after the publication of the `SUD.UA` about how the President of the Venice Commission, Gianni Buquicchio, took up political games in Ukraine and about the problems that arose with the transparency of the VC, personnel changes took place in the Commission.

The fact that the Venice Commission began to participate in political campaigns (or rather, its head) is also evidenced by the direction of Gianni Buquicchio (again, alone) a letter at that time to the head of the Supreme Court, Valentina Danishevskaya. It is noteworthy that such a letter was sent by Buquicchio on the eve of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, which decided the issue of applying to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine regarding the constitutionality of the norms of the law on the Ethics Council.

In it, the head of the Venice Commission unequivocally hints to Valentina Danishevskaya that it is very important not to even try to block the creation of an Ethics Council for checking the constitutional body of Ukraine, the High Council of Justice.

Gianni Buquicchio also noted that since there is already a list of candidates for the positions of members of the High Council of Justice according to the parliamentary quota, the Ethics Council could immediately start checking them for compliance with the desired position.

`As soon as the Ethics Council is established, it will be able to start fulfilling both of its tasks: the selection of candidates for appointment to the High Council of Justice and the verification of current judges`, the letter of the head of the Venice Commission says.

In addition, Gianni Buquicchio published his statement on September 29, in which he said that `judicial reform was at the center of my recent fruitful exchange of views with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Another essential part of that reform is the establishment of the Ethics Council..

... It is now urgent that the Council of Judges of Ukraine make, with no further delay, its own appointments, which are essential for the implementation of the reform. Indeed, all the concerned authorities should refrain from taking any measure, action, inaction or procedure resulting in a delay in the setting-up of the Ethics Council, which could cause an irreparable damage to the realisation of an independent and efficient judiciary in Ukraine. It is the responsibility of all to implement the judicial reform`.

As can be seen from the above, the President of VC Gianni Buquicchio, at the end of his work, no longer simply represented the position of the entire Venice Commission, as set out in its conclusions, but also on his own behalf gave mandatory political advice to the judicial (and not only) authorities of Ukraine.

Due to the activity of Mr. Buquicchio in Ukrainian politics, SUD.UA addressed him with questions. One of our questions concerned the implementation of the well-known Conclusions of the Venice Commission regarding the need for international experts to participate in the selection of new judges of the Constitutional Court and, in principle, that the competition for vacancies in the Constitutional Court should be conducted according to a new procedure.

However, we have not received an answer. Probably, one of the reasons may be that the President of the Venice Commission commented only on those things that fit most conveniently into the current political context.

There is a hope that the new president of VC will strictly observe the role and tasks assigned to her.