Online Court: Pylyp Orlyk Foundation Team Drafts Bill on Ensuring the Right to Participate in Court Hearings via Videoconference
On July 27, 2026, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine registered draft Law of Ukraine No. 15446 «On Introducing Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts Regarding the Holding of Court Hearings in Videoconference Mode», developed by representatives of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation. The bill is designed to guarantee citizens’ participation in court hearings in videoconference mode, strengthen guarantees of citizens’ access to justice, and make impossible unjustified refusals of participation in court hearings remotely.
The right to participate in a court hearing in videoconference mode is an important instrument for ensuring access to justice. However, there are cases when courts deny participants of the process the opportunity to join a hearing remotely without sufficient objective grounds. Draft law No. 15446 proposes to introduce amendments to the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, the Commercial Procedure Code of Ukraine, and the Code of Administrative Judicial Procedure of Ukraine with the aim of preventing such cases.
«The right to a court hearing is an inalienable part of the constitutional rights of every person. Under the conditions of full-scale war, the state must ensure a real opportunity to exercise this right, not merely its formal declaration. Participation in a court hearing in videoconference mode today is not simply a matter of convenience — in many cases it is a matter of the physical safety of people and the factual accessibility of justice. The adoption of the proposed amendments will make it possible to more clearly define the court’s obligation to ensure remote participation, while at the same time establishing an exhaustive list of objective grounds under which this is impossible,» said the developer of the draft law, head of the legislative activity direction of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine, candidate of legal sciences Oleksii Yushchenko.
The key novelty of the proposal lies in establishing the court’s obligation to ensure a person’s participation in a court hearing in videoconference mode, if a participant of the process considers this a reliable means of ensuring their due appearance in the proceedings.
At the same time, the bill clearly defines the cases in which participation in a court hearing in videoconference mode cannot be ensured for objective reasons. In particular, this concerns the absence of the court’s technical capability or the lack of connection for participation in videoconference mode while observing the legally established deadlines.
The following worked on the draft law:
- Oleksii Yushchenko — head of the legislative activity direction of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine, candidate of legal sciences;
- Maksym Barashnikov — head of the direction of international legal projects and strategic research;
- Oleh Zaiarnyi — Scientific Advisor of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, Doctor of Legal Sciences, professor of the Department of Intellectual Property and Information Law of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Law of Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University.
The proposed amendments should clearly delineate the objective grounds for the impossibility of holding a hearing online and the situations in which a refusal of remote participation may be unjustified. This approach, in the developers’ opinion, will make it possible to reduce opportunities for abuse and ensure a wider application of the legislation in court practice.
The registration of the draft law in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is the next stage in the work on the legislative regulation of remote participation in court proceedings.
