The judicial system has lost 972 million hryvnias due to planning issues

This is set out in the Audit Office’s report on the results of the audit of the organisational and financial support for the judiciary. The document covers the activities of the State Judicial Administration in 2023–2024 and selected indicators for 2025–2026.

Where did the 972 million hryvnias go?

Formally, the money has not disappeared and has not been stolen. These are appropriations which the judicial system did not manage or was unable to use for their intended purpose by the end of the financial year.

In total, 972 million hryvnias were returned to the budget in 2023–2024. Of this amount, 611.1 million were earmarked to support the operations of local and appeal courts, whilst a further 360.9 million had already been allocated to spending authorities but not utilised.

The claim regarding the loss of funds relates to missed opportunities for the judicial system. The Audit Office noted that these resources could have been channelled towards repairs, the purchase of equipment, infrastructure modernisation and the completion of capital projects.

Courts were underfunded

The return of nearly a billion hryvnias took place at a time when the needs of local and appeal courts were only partially met.

In 2023, the courts stated a requirement for 22.6 billion hryvnias, but the budgets provided for 16.9 billion — 74.7 per cent of the required amount. In 2024, the situation worsened: with a requirement of 27.9 billion, the judicial system received 18.6 billion, or 66.7 per cent.

The number of budget holders with low funding levels rose from 28 to 49 over the year. At the same time, the number of institutions whose needs were met to a high degree fell from 15 to five.

The auditors also identified significant disparities between regions. In 2024, the needs of the courts in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast were funded at 83.9 per cent, whilst those in Kirovohrad Oblast were funded at only 62.6 per cent. In Kyiv, the funding rate stood at 63.5 per cent, and in the Cherkasy region at 67.4 per cent.

Why the funds were not used

The State Judicial Administration attributed the carry-overs to military operations, staff changes, cost savings during procurement and the inability to complete capital projects by the end of the financial year.

Other reasons cited included downtime, staff redundancies, lower energy costs, delays in procurement and payments, the mobilisation of construction workers, and power cuts.

At the same time, the Audit Office identified systemic problems within the budgetary process itself. The State Administration of Courts lacked a unified approach to determining the courts’ needs, proper verification of calculations and an automated data collection system.

Regional offices used different methodologies. In Kyiv, the courts’ needs were not fully taken into account; in the Zhytomyr region, proposals were collected without financial and economic justifications; in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, calculations were drawn up without taking into account the courts’ own proposals; and in the Luhansk region, they were drawn up without analysing the actual situation in the institutions.

Due to the lack of detail, the State Judicial Administration did not have complete information on the needs of each individual court. This hampered the timely reallocation of funds between institutions that were unable to utilise their allocations and courts that were underfunded.

A further 382 million remained unallocated

As at 1 January 2025, the State Judicial Administration also had 382.4 million hryvnias at its disposal, which had not been allocated at all among the courts and institutions of the justice system.

At the same time, arrears on salaries and judges’ remuneration were accumulating in the courts. In May 2023, arrears owed to judges amounted to 296.5 million hryvnias. In May 2024, wage arrears to court staff stood at 59.9 million hryvnias, whilst arrears on judges’ remuneration amounted to 157.2 million hryvnias.

Which projects were left without funding

The report lists six major projects that could not be completed for a long time due to a lack of funds. Their total cost exceeded one billion hryvnias.

These included the refurbishment of the Mukachevo City and District Court building at a cost of 197.8 million hryvnias, the conversion of a canteen into the Central District Court of Mykolaiv at a cost of 212.2 million, and the creation of the ‘House of Justice’ in Kropyvnytskyi at a cost of 284.8 million hryvnias.

Furthermore, the refurbishment of the Uzhhorod City and District Court premises, the construction of the Pustomyty District Court and the refurbishment of the Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast have not been completed.

Due to the postponement of these projects, the courts continued to operate in rented or unsuitable premises, which hampered the hearing of cases and created inadequate conditions for staff and visitors.

Staff carried out repairs to the courts at their own expense

Due to the lack of a transparent mechanism for prioritising repairs, court staff resolved some of the problems themselves.

Judges in 20 regions and Kyiv reported carrying out repairs to their offices at their own expense. According to the results of a separate survey, 73.6 per cent of 375 first-instance judges stated that they had spent their own money on repairing their offices.

Staff also repaired computers, purchased consumables and video cameras at their own expense. In some courts, they used their own equipment for work.

The number of pending cases has risen

Problems with funding and staffing have affected the timeliness of the administration of justice.

In 2024, the number of pending cases and files reached 904,102, which was 12 per cent higher than the previous year. The number of proceedings that had been pending for over a year rose by 19 per cent to 147,102.

Official reports from the State Judicial Administration (SJA) indicated that the courts had resolved 97.1 per cent of the cases filed during the year. However, this figure did not take into account more than 900,000 cases carried over from previous periods. Once these were taken into account, the actual figure stood at just 82.3 per cent.

The Audit Office concluded that, without structural reform, the State Judicial Administration would be unable to ensure transparent and timely funding for the courts. The auditors recommended introducing a single digital resource management system, a standardised methodology for determining needs, and ongoing monitoring of cash balances and debts.

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