Judges from across Poland call on the government and the president of the Supreme Court to implement the CJEU rulings. The appeal was signed by a record number of Polish judges, including over 400 judges from Krakow. More signatures are still being collected. Supreme Court judges are also signing the appeal.

Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro is resorting to an extraordinary complaint to punish Judge Waldemar Żurek, one of the symbols of the defense of independent courts in Poland. He appealed to the Supreme Court against a judgement which was favourable for Żurek regarding his property settlements with his ex-wife.   Judge Waldemar Żurek from the Regional […]

The president of the court in Gorzów Wielkopolski ordered the removal of an important judgment regarding the omission of Julia Przyłębska’s Constitutional Tribunal ruling from the database of judgments. The judgment will return to the database after the full data of Mariusz Muszyński from the Constitutional Tribunal is deleted and his identity is concealed under the initials “M.M.”. The public prosecutor is joining the case.

President Andrzej Duda has issued a regulation silencing the old judges of the Supreme Court and restricting their initiative.  In exchange, it strengthens the position of President Manowska and the new judges. It also sanctions the principle of non-disclosure of cases in the Supreme Court. 

The new NCJ, which is supposed to defend the independence of the courts, has itself attacked the court in Bydgoszcz for reinstating Judge Paweł Juszczyszyn. It has also attacked the judge’s lawyer, who is demanding that the First President of the Supreme Court enforce the ruling in Juszczyszyn’s case.

Independent Judge Piotr Gąciarek from Warsaw has been removed from adjudicating in important criminal cases. He will be assigned to a quieter division in the court. This is a demotion for him and a punishment for his bold speech in court in defence of the free courts. Ziobro’s disciplinary commissioner is also taking an interest in Gąciarek

This is a precedent-setting and sensational judgment. For the first time, a Polish court has directly challenged a decision of the illegal Disciplinary Chamber. The judgment of the court in Olsztyn is immediately enforceable, which means that Pawel Juszczyszyn can return to work in court.

In precedent-setting judgments, the Supreme Administrative Court undermined the validity of the selection of the new Supreme Court judges. It ruled that the recruitment to the Supreme Court was defective from the outset, while the new NCJ, which gave the nominations, was dependent on the politicians. The Supreme Administrative Court’s judgments have now opened the door to declaring the new Supreme Court judges illegal.

The illegal Disciplinary Chamber will decide as early as on 6 May whether to lift Professor Włodzimierz Wróbel’s immunity and allow him to be prosecuted, after he ran for the office of president of the Supreme Court. The decision will be made by former prosecutors associated with Ziobro and a supporter of the PiS government 

The National Prosecutor’s Office is about to ambush the old, legal Supreme Court. It has demanded that the Criminal Chamber hand over the files of 25 cases because it is conducting a political investigation of the Supreme Court. The chairman of the Criminal Chamber, Michał Laskowski, a dozen or so judges from that Chamber and even former Supreme Court President Gersdorf would be threatened with criminal charges.