The Judicial Council has established new rules to increase the number of assistant judges

The Council of Judges of Ukraine has approved the criteria by which it will evaluate the applications of courts to increase the maximum number of assistant judges. The corresponding decision was made against the background of a sharp increase in the load on the judicial system and a large number of pending cases.

This is stated in the Decision of the Council of Judges of Ukraine No. 20 dated June 5, 2026.

Courts are massively requesting additional assistants

As reported by the RSU, the Council has already received applications from 32 courts. They are asking to approve the introduction of another 254 full-time positions of assistant judges, and new applications continue to arrive.

Earlier, amendments were made to the Regulation on Assistant Judges, which allow in exceptional cases to increase the number of assistants above the established limits.

To do this, the meeting of judges of a specific court must adopt a reasoned decision and apply to the Council of Judges of Ukraine. Final approval is made after consultations with the State Judicial Administration.

What criteria will be taken into account

The Council of Judges has identified five key criteria for assessing such appeals:

load;
urgency;
level of criticality;
priority;
justification.

The assessment will take into account:

number of cases in the court;
growth rate of unexamined materials;
staff shortage;
categories of cases;
proximity to areas of military operations;
workload on specific judges;
population size and characteristics of jurisdiction.
The RSU explained the main goal of the changes

The Council of Judges emphasized that the new rules do not mean automatically assigning two assistants to each judge.

The main goal is to support courts that are in a critical situation due to excessive workload and lack of human resources.

A special working group has already been created to analyze all appeals in the RSU. It will be engaged in checking submitted applications, standardizing the procedure and preparing the relevant decisions.

Decisions will be made comprehensively

The RSU separately emphasized that no single criterion will be decisive in itself. All circumstances will be assessed comprehensively, taking into account the real situation in a particular court.