Tag: National Council of the Judiciary

Almost all judges – members of the old, legal National Council of Judiciary (Krajowa Rada Sądownictwa, KRS), which was dissolved by PiS, have signed an appeal to the authorities to implement the ECtHR and CJEU judgments. They are appealing to the authorities to appoint an NCJ which is consistent with the Constitution. They are also appealing to judges to boycott recruitment for the second term of office of the neo-NCJ.

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 authorities will try to use the carrot-and-stick method: a stick for those judges who are fighting for the rule of law, and a carrot for those they try to persuade over to them,’ believes Judge Waldemar Żurek. We discuss scenarios of further changes in courts and judges’ reactions to them

Judge Agnieszka Niklas-Bibik from Słupsk is the first Polish judge suspended for asking preliminary questions to the CJEU. She was also repressed for enforcing judgments of the ECtHR and the CJEU. The judge was suspended by the president of the Słupsk court, appointed by Zbigniew Ziobro

A dozen or so judges from Kraków issued a statement that they would not adjudicate with neo-judges. For that, the court president, a nominee of Minister Ziobro quickly reported them to the disciplinary commissioner. But more judges from Warsaw and Rzeszów are contesting the legality of the neo-judges.

Disciplinary commissioner Piotr Schab suspended judge Piotr Gąciarek for a month for a declaration made a few days earlier in which Gąciarek refused to adjudicate in a bench with a judge promoted by the new, political National Council of the Judiciary. Gąciarek is the second judge recently suspended for refusing to adjudicate with a neo-judge in the performance of the July judgment of the CJEU and the ECtHR.

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.

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.

In its concluding report, the Civil Development Forum (FOR) evaluates plans to contain the crisis and focuses on genuine reforms in Poland’s justice system