During his report to the Parliament, the president of the neo-KRS declared that the members of the Council would not leave their posts even in the event the CJEU rules against them. Only the Polish authorities can force them out.

Judge Anna Bator-Ciesielska was the first justice in Poland to adjudicate with a judge whose name arose in conjunction with a smear campaign against independent judges. Bator-Ciesielska is already being prosecuted by the disciplinary spokesman, but in an interview with Mariusz Jałoszewski of OKO.press she says that judges must have a conscience, and that she is not afraid because judges cannot be afraid.

Anna Bator-Ciesielska, a justice of the District Court in Warsaw, has distinguished herself as another brave Polish judge. Judge Bator-Ciesielska referred questions to the EU Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the powers of the Minister of Justice and on the status of the new National Council of the Judiciary, the majority of whose members are now elected by politicians rather than by judges, as the Constitution dictates. The filing also asks whether rulings issued by the Supreme Court will be valid under European law if a representative of the new NCJ is involved in the process of assigning cases to the Supreme Court.

In Poland, the process of flouting and bending our Constitution has been on the rise for several years. The division of powers is being dismantled and the independent judiciary is being destroyed. Human rights are curtailed – former ambassadors write to POTUS

A deputy minister of justice resigns. His devoted helper dismissed from his job at the ministry. Judge of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court and employees of the neo-NCJ summoned to give explanations. Alerted prosecution office and disciplinary commissioners. The Piebiak scandal, which was the ‘PiS caste’ scandal as early as on Thursday, is spreading ever wider. The government is playing it down, but the opinion polls have moved

The Commission’s new Rule of Law package might trigger the greatest progress since the introduction of Article 7

Jerzy Zajadło writes: The situation is exceptionally grave – Law and Justice has aimed almost its entire arsenal at the justice system, but now has unsheathed one more weapon: administrative review of the substance of judicial verdicts. Professor and philosopher of law Jerzy Zajadło discusses the general context of the Polish Parliament’s refusal to carry out a verdict of the Supreme Administrative Court.

Awareness of the changes in the Polish judicial system implemented by the ruling party, Law and Justice, is growing both domestically and internationally.

On 3 July, the President of Poland Andrzej Duda visited Lwówek Śląski and gave a speech in which he criticized the activity of the Constitutional Tribunal, whose ruling from 2014 recognized the conformity of a gradual increase in the retirement age with the Polish Constitution.

For the second time in recent months, in June 2019 the Supreme Court referred preliminary questions to the European Court of Justice regarding disciplinary proceedings against judges. The most recent case involves judge Frąckowiak of the Poznań regional court.