Tag: Supreme Court

Step by step, the neo-judges are taking control over the old, legal Supreme Court. The First President of the Supreme Court, Małgorzata Manowska, has just dismissed all the heads of division in the Civil Chamber. Manowska is also blocking the implementation of a CJEU ruling regarding the legality of the Supreme Court’s neo-judges

The reorganisation planned for January is to give the neo-judges full control over the Civil Chamber. Its result will be that old judges will lose the managerial positions of the divisions and neo-judges will take their place. The names in line for ‘promotion’ include Kamil Zaradkiewicz.

‘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

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. 

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 

“It is not necessary to change the laws in order for politicians to gain full control over the Supreme Court.  It is sufficient that some of the judges who have been duly appointed be removed from adjudication by the Disciplinary Chamber at the request of the prosecution, which is subordinate to the politicians.”

Download PDF (English, Polish)     28 March 2021     Ursula von der Leyen President of the European Commission     Věra Jourová Vice-President of the European Commission     Didier Reynders Member of the European Commission     Dear President, Dear Vice-President, Dear Commissioner,     Further to the letter of December 2020, […]

National Prosecutor Bogdan Święczkowski has demanded that the Supreme Court hand over the files of cases heard by the Criminal Chamber. They are needed by the prosecutors from the internal affairs department of the National Prosecutor’s Office. This is a special unit that was supposed to combat pathologies in the judiciary, and has recently been involved in prosecuting judges

We obtained a statement of 65 active and former Supreme Court judges regarding requests to lift judicial immunity and the Disciplinary Chamber