Polish court reforms

[alomas]

I am not sure how familiar most of you are with Polish judicial system and what has changed in recent years, so I am going to provide a summary so you can form an opinion.

Poland is a democratic nation, comprising of three branches of government: legislative, executive and judicial. Regarding judiciary, there is a Supreme Court as a top court, where are over 100 judges, with appeals courts as the second step and lower/regional courts as the lowest instance. Also, there is a Constitutional Tribunal (15 judges chosen by Parliament for 9-year term, whose responsibility is to decide if a certain law is constitutional or not. There is also National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), which has 25 members and they nominate judges for all courts and the President confirms their nomination or can refuse (which very rarely happens).

At the start of 2015 Civic Platform (PO) controlled the presidency, Parliament and had 9 out of 15 Constitutional Tribunal judges, so theoretically controlled all three branches. Law and Justice (PiS) regained the presidency in May and Parliament in October. However until then PO choose five further judges into the Tribunal, making 14 out of 15 judges selected by them. However it wasn't all fair and well because two outgoing judges' terms ended in December so they jumped the gun as they knew they are likely to lose power.

Initially PiS filed a complaint to the Tribunal but shortly after winning the election, they withdraw it and change tactics and so the march to take over the courts began.

President Duda refused to swear-in five selected judges despite the constitution obliges him to do even if the choice was invalid (the Tribunal must say so first and the proceedings were set for few weeks later). Meanwhile, PiS voted a law invalidating PO choice of five judges and selected went on to select their five new juges. It has taken place a day before a Tribunal proceedings when the validation of PO choice was going to be decided. Then after midnight President Duda sworn-in these five new judges. Why the rush? The next day the Tribunal decided that the selection of three PO judges was valid, but two others invalid. The President said it is now impossible to add three more because all 15 members are already selected...

But they went further. Despite the constitution stating a simply majority is needed for a decision, they increased it to two-thirds. They also increased the number of judges needed for a decision to 13. This move meant PO-controlled judges cannot do anything to stop any PiS legislation. Now, the President of the Tribunal, Andrzej Rzeplinski (selected by PO) had his constitution-guaranteed term shortened. It is important to add that Law and Justice never had a two-thirds majority so the change the constitution and all the votes were on simpler laws.

One a half years later, they terminated a National Council of Judiciary (KRS) 4-year year (again violating the constitution) and give the justice minister a power to dismiss heads of lower courts. All the debate was in the scandalous atmosphere with de-facto Polish ruler Jaroslaw Kaczynski accusing the opposition of murdering(!) his brother and calling them "scumbags" in the Parliament outburst. The opposition behaviour wasn't much more civil either. One of them was throwing papers while standing on a chair during a committee meeting, the other was trying to take away the microphone, in general things unthinkable in the USA. Thankfully no one was hurt.

PiS also forced Supreme Court judges into earlier retirement (65 years instead of 70) to push through their judges through KRS, of which majority was now being chosen by the PiS-controlled Parliament. Interestingly President Duda vetoed these two laws but after some minor changes there were signed into law by him in December last year.

Since then five updates were needed in the Supreme Court law. Today the President signed the fifth one into law. The European Commission is furious and has launched an Article 7 procedure against Poland last year in order to defend a rule of law. There is another procedure launched this week which can result in referring Poland into European Tribunal in Luxembourg in September and blocking this law. This is week PiS is in the rush again. Interestingly KRS is not going to meet until September and select new judges into Supreme Court and then choose a new President of the Supreme Court (Malgorzata Gersdorf was forced into retirement according to the PiS despite constitionally obliged into six-year term, expiring in April 2020).

This can give a European Tribunal time to block this law and threaten severe financial sanctions if they don't stop. This is possible because (ironically!) Kaczynski's late brother signed a Lisbon Treaty, which means EU has a say over Poland affairs.

It it a bit long and English is not my primary language but I hope everyone understands what is going on and form an opinion on this situation. Personally I am not a fan of either PiS or PO, but this is absolutely unacceptable to me.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Hello, fellow Polish poster.