Insight
Time to let the rule of law in Poland have its day in court by Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska 19 July 2018
Poland’s government has not reversed its controversial judicial reforms, despite EU political pressure. It is time to take the dispute out of the hands of politicians and allow the European Court of Justice to have a say about the rule of law in Poland. On July 4th Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, presented his government’s vision for Europe’s future to the European Parliament. It was not Morawiecki’s take on EU reform that stole the show, however, but his government’s latest attempts to undermine the rule of law in Poland. Since the Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in 2015, it has forced through a series of judicial reforms. It revised the way the Constitutional Court works, and packed it with party-friendly figures. A compliant Constitutional Court made it easier for PiS to press on with other controversial judicial changes. PiS then revised laws on the National Judiciary Council (which nominates judges), on ordinary courts and on the Supreme Court. The last of these laws entered into force in April 2018, although some of its most important provisions kicked in at midnight on July 4th – a few hours before Morawiecki’s trip to Strasbourg. The reform of the Supreme Court has proved particularly contentious. It lowers the retirement age for judges from 70 to 65, allowing PiS to oust 27 out of 72 of them. The act also increases the number of judges to 120 and makes it easier for the governing party to influence the future make-up of the Supreme Court. Many MEPs worried on July 4th that the reform represents a hostile takeover of the highest court in Poland, which adjudicates on the validity of the parliamentary elections, among other things. The Polish government rejects these accusations. It argues that the law allows judges who have turned 65 to ask the president to prolong their term. Only those who did not submit such a request retired at midnight on July 4th. Morawiecki says the reform is part of a broader drive to free the Polish judiciary from its murky past. He told MEPs that some of the current Supreme Court judges were sitting in judicial posts during the period of martial law from December 1981 to July 1983, when the communist government crushed any attempts at civil disobedience.
CER INSIGHT: Time to let the rule of law in Poland have its day in court 19 July 2018
info@cer.EU | WWW.CER.EU
1