ADMINISTRATIVE COURTS REASONABLE TIME According to the assessment of the monitors, the court used efficient actions to encourage the parties to settle in 89% of those cases where it was necessary. This indicator is notably higher than in other courts. It may be connected to the fact that until mid-2001 the principle of “arbitration” worked in commercial courts (called courts of arbitration at that time), under which the court of arbitration was required to promote the settlement of the dispute between the parties. Even though this principle had been removed, the tradition to encourage the parties to settle may have remained. Only in 17% of cases the court hearing started on time or with a delay of up to 5 minutes. Thus, the punctuality of the judges of commercial courts is lower than in other courts. The monitors often noted more than one hour delays in the beginning of the hearing of certain cases – in commercial courts of all instances.   8 ADMINISTRATIVE COURTS The monitors visited 206 court hearings in administrative courts, including: 138 hearings – in district administrative courts; 60 206 COURT HEARINGS 60 hearings – in administrative courts of appeal; 138 8 hearings – in the High Administrative Court of Ukraine. At the time of the monitoring, the administrative courts considered only administrative cases – disputes with local self-government bodies. However, certain types of administrative cases were considered by the first instance courts of general jurisdiction as administrative courts (these cases were not taken into account in this section of the report). ADHERENCE TO GENERAL RULES OF PROCEDURE According to the monitors, the judges of administrative courts conducted the hearings: impeccably in 57 % of the cases; with minor violations – in 36 % of the cases; 6% THE JUDGES OF 36% ADMINISTRATIVE COURTS 57% with gross violations of the rules of procedure and the rights of the participants of the trial – in 6 % of the cases. The overall impression of the monitors regarding compliance with the procedural rules in administrative courts is much better than in general and commercial courts. Report on the findings of the first trial monitoring programme in Ukraine 31