GENERAL FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS COMPARISON OF COURTS OF DIFFERENT INSTANCES AND JURISDICTIONS The administrative courts observed the procedure more often than the general and commercial courts. Administrative courts demonstrated higher publicity, impartiality and culture of conducting the court trial. Commercial courts were the least ready for publicity of the trial. Despite certain stereotypes regarding the “elite” status of commercial courts, the questionnaires of the monitors did not confirm that the judges of those courts and trial participants demonstrated better behaviour standards than in other courts. A striking difference was observed in the use of legal means by the courts to encourage the parties to settle. According to the monitors, efficient actions aimed at settlement of the case were often used by general courts, and especially by commercial, while in administrative courts the monitors did not see any cases of the kind. The higher the court instance was, the fewer violations the monitors noted. COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF ADJUDICATION The highest compliance with the rules of procedure during court hearings was demonstrated in administrative case trials (more than half of court hearings were evaluated by the monitors as impeccable). At the same time, the situation with administrative offence cases was the worst – less than each third case was considered impeccably. A similar ratio was observed regarding the observance by the courts of the principles of publicity, impartiality and equality, and the culture of conducting the court trial. The highest difference between different types of adjudication was noted in the scores for observing the principle of publicity. This principle was best implemented in administrative cases, worst – in cases on administrative offences and commercial cases. The suspects and the accused in each seventh criminal case (14%) were in a barred cage in the courtroom in contrary to the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code and the respective case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. In first and second instance courts the handcuffs were put on the accused mostly on the stage of escorting him/her to the courtroom. It is important to note that in one case at a first instance court the defendant stayed in handcuffs for the whole duration of the hearing. Although this was a single occasion of the kind, it requires taking general measures to prevent similar occurrences in the future. 84 MONITORING OF ADHERENCE TO FAIR TRIAL STANDARDS IN UKRAINE