Tag: Disciplinary Chamber

The Disciplinary Chamber satisfies features of an exceptional court, despite its nominal inclusion in the structure of the Supreme Court. As a result, fundamental doubts arise as to whether the rulings issued by this chamber are judicial decisions in the meaning of the Constitution – argues prof. Włodzimierz Wróbel (Jagiellonian University)

Open Letter to the President of the European Commission regarding Poland’s disciplinary regime for judges and the urgent need for interim measures in Commission v Poland (C-791/19)

Thanks to the Association of Judges “Themis”, we publish the translation of oral justification of the Supreme Court judgment of 5 December 2019 in case in which it requested the Court of Justice for preliminary ruling of 19 November 2019

Following the delivery of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg on the National Council of the Judiciary and the Disciplinary Chamber, we emphasise that all authorities of the Republic of Poland are obliged to fully execute the said judgment.

On 8 July 2019, prosecutor Mariusz Krasoń was relocated from the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Cracow, Poland to the District Prosecutor’s Office in Wrocław-Krzyki, almost 300 km away, and two levels lower in the hierarchy. The Justice Defence Committee (KOS) indicates that in May 2019, prosecutor Krasoń initiated a resolution of the Assembly of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Cracow.

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.

On Tuesday, 18 June 2019, the European Court of Justice considered two preliminary requests submitted by courts in Łódź and Warsaw. Both courts are concerned whether the new system of disciplinary proceedings against judges meets EU standards, particularly those enshrined in the principle of effective judicial protection. However, the hearing was mainly focused not on particular provisions of law questioned by the Polish courts, but on the admissibility of the questions these courts referred to the ECJ.

The assertion presented by the media, that the sole objective of the so-called ‘great reform of the justice system’ lies in a one-off replacement of judicial personnel with a view to replace the key judicial office holders by those subordinated to the Minister of Justice is an overlyoptimistic simplification of matters. The authors of the ‘reform of the justice system’ were far more ambitious.

In the last few months, the use of the new disciplinary procedures has become increasingly bald-faced. Increasingly, the authorities do not appear to be ashamed of their real motives, which are unabashedly political’ – writes prof. Piotr Mikuli at I-CONNECT.

Through the Act of 8 December 2017 on the Supreme Court, drafted by the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda, the Law and Justice party has made radical changes in the system of judges’ disciplinary responsibility