Tag: Supreme Court

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.

Acting First President of the Supreme Court Małgorzata Manowska has requested the opening of proceedings against three legal judges of the Supreme Court for wanting to assess the legality of neo-judges while implementing the judgments of the ECtHR, the CJEU and the Supreme Court. Professor Wróbel and Judge Matras, who is defending suspended judges, could face charges.

The legal judges of the Supreme Court, including the former presidents, are appealing to the Sejm to fully implement the judgments of the ECtHR and the CJEU and to liquidate the main source of problems with the rule of law, namely the neo-NCJ.

The Law and Justice party (PiS) is continuing to breach the rule of law and exacerbate the conflict with the EU. The ruling party has already agreed on a list of 15 candidates for the neo-NCJ II, which gives nominations to judges. It will be even worse than the current one, because the list contains “hawks” headed by Łukasz Piebiak. 

Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro wants to remove the legal judges from the Supreme Court. The current Supreme Court is to be liquidated under the guise of implementing a CJEU ruling, to be replaced by a small Supreme Court with only 30 vetted judges. This radical plan is in conflict with Duda’s and PiS’s bills.

The European Commission is to decide whether to unfreeze billions for Poland from the EU’s Reconstruction Fund. It should not ‘buy’ President Duda’s or the Law and Justice party’s (PiS’s) offer. It needs to demand the full restoration of the rule of law. Otherwise, it will condemn the courts to ultimate destruction, reward ‘sly judges’ and antagonise the judicial community.

A group of PiS MPs have submitted a bill to the Sejm which they claim will implement the CJEU ruling and unlock billions of euros for Poland. However, PiS does not want to liquidate the Disciplinary Chamber, but only take away its disciplinary cases regarding judges. PiS’s bill strikes at Duda’s initiative.

The Disciplinary Commissioner will be able to prosecute a judge who interprets that the Catholic Church is liable for the crime of paedophilia of its subordinates.  And this is just one of the possible dangers contained in the presidential bill.

Our proposal justly differentiates the situations of judges who knowingly chose promotion, while other boycotted defective recruitments – argue lawyers from the Free Courts initiative Michał Wawrykiewicz, Paulina Kieszkowska-Knapik, Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram, Maria Ejchart-Dubois

Support from a part of the opposition for the presidential bill for revitalising the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court would, among other things, be in conflict with the recently concluded Agreement for the Rule of Law. And in conflict with the rulings of the European courts – in Luxembourg and Strasbourg.