Tag: Constitutional Tribunal

If you are a Polish judge and you intend to apply European standards on judicial independence, think twice. You are facing suspension, as well as disciplinary and criminal proceedings. Either the end of your career or, at best, a long and unpleasant break. This is the situation in Poland, a European Union Member State, at the dawn of the 21st century.

Retired judges of the Constitutional Tribunal state that the judgment in question is another scandalous example of jurisprudence violating the Constitution. Challenging Article 6 of the ECHR for the second time in a short period of time (previously in the judgment of 24.11.2021, K 6/21) is a drastic jurisprudential excess.

The selectivity in complying with ECtHR judgments was dressed up to appear as the checking of the constitutionality of the provisions of an international convention.  This is why the operative part of the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal states that Article 6 of the ECHR is unconstitutional, which in itself is outrageous. 

Just like the Prime Minister’s motion and the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgment of 7 October, the prosecutor general’s motion in case K 7/21 contains criticism of the European Court of Human Rights acts, that are nowhere to be found in the courts’ case law.

The Polish politically captured Constitutional Tribunal ruled in case K 6 /21 that it is not a court within the meaning of the European Convention on Human Rights. It also ruled that the European Court of Human Rights cannot judge the legality of judicial appointments. We publish argumentation presented in the case before the Constitutional Tribunal by the Commissioner for Human Rights.

“We hope that it will contribute to the clarification of the false statements contained in the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgment of October 7, 2021 (K 3/21), its oral explanations, and statements of political authorities’ representatives regarding the coexistence of Polish and the European Union law.”

“The conclusion of the Constitutional Tribunal was made in violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, with the participation of persons not authorised to adjudicate and in fact exceed the scope of cognition of the Constitutional Tribunal, which does not include the control of judicial decisions, including decisions of the Court of Justice of the EU. “

To understand why the 7 October 2021 decision of the Constitutional Tribunal is such a threat to the rule of law, it is necessary to review the arguments of the Polish government that prompted this decision, together with the arguments presented by the Commissioner for Human Rights in opposition that were rejected by the Tribunal. The conclusion from such a review is apparent – the goal of the current government is to free itself in reality from the constraints of EU law while formally remaining a Member State.

The Committee on Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences: the ruling  of the Constitutional Tribunal in case K 3/21 of October 7, 2021 is defective due to the faulty appointment of judges and aims to legalize unconstitutional changes introduced in the administration of justice after 2015 which are inconsistent with EU law and the European Convention

“It is not true that the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal of 7 October 2021 was issued in order to guarantee primacy of the Constitution over EU law, as such a position of the Constitution has been sufficiently established in the Tribunal’s judgments to date”