WARSAW — A shock ruling by Poland’s Supreme Court — that judges appointed by a politically controlled body are illegitimate — unleashed a fierce battle between the judicial system and the country’s nationalist government, and worsened the ongoing conflict between Warsaw and Brussels.
The government said it would ignore Thursday’s ruling, with one deputy minister saying of the verdict, “I don’t give a damn about these 60 professors, because I’m with the Polish people.”
It’s the result of four years of radical changes to the legal system by Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS). The party argues that the reforms are needed to root out the remnants of communism, while skeptics see them as an effort to bring the courts under tight political control — which the European Commission worries could undermine the EU’s legal order.
The Supreme Court’s decision has echoed through lower courts, with some judges appointed by the National Council of the Judiciary (NCJ) agreeing to withdraw from cases they were hearing. However, the NCJ met Friday and said that the Supreme Court ruling does not prevent such judges from continuing to work, accusing the top court of “breaking the principle of judicial independence.”
The new Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court — whose independence was questioned by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and other European institutions — will also continue working despite being ruled as illegitimate by the Supreme Court, the body’s spokesman Piotr Falkowski said Friday.
The fight is also pulling in Brussels. On Friday, the European Commission filed an application to the CJEU requesting interim measures on the continued functioning of the disciplinary chamber. If the CJEU decides to act, the Polish government will have to effectively suspend the chamber.
Polish officials in Brussels said that Warsaw has always obeyed the orders of the EU’s highest court.
Dueling courts
“The Commission is very concerned about the rule of law situation in Poland,” Christian Wigand, a Commission spokesman, said Friday. He added that the Commission is also worried about “follow-up” comments being made by the Polish government in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he would ask the country’s Constitutional Tribunal to get involved. “I cannot allow for chaos and anarchy,” he said, calling the Supreme Court’s decision “an unprecedented act that could lead to the destabilization of the legal order.”
Małgorzata Gersdorf, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, fired back that the tribunal has no right to undermine the verdicts of other courts.
“The independence and legitimacy of the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland have been seriously undermined” — Christian Wigand, European Commission spokesman
The tribunal — which is supposed to oversee compliance of the law with the constitution — is under the control of the ruling party.
“The independence and legitimacy of the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland have been seriously undermined and it is no longer able to provide an effective constitutional review,” Wigand said.
The government’s response to the Supreme Court is part of a broader tendency to ignore inconvenient verdicts.
When the Constitutional Tribunal ruled in 2015 that several new justices had been illegally appointed by President Andrzej Duda, the government refused to publish the verdict until the tribunal’s makeup was changed.
Something similar is happening with the NCJ. It was reconstituted in 2018, and the new body was appointed by the PiS-controlled parliament. Candidates to the new NCJ were supposed to have the signatures of 25 other judges backing them, but the government is keeping the names confidential. The head of the parliament’s chancellery was fined 6,000 zloty (€1,420) this week for ignoring a court order to publish the list.
Judges who have raised uncomfortable questions about the NJC and other judicial reforms have faced disciplinary measures from the justice ministry. On Thursday, those sanctions gained the force of law thanks to legislation passed by the lower house of parliament — ignoring a letter from Věra Jourová, the Commission vice president for values and transparency, who asked the parliament to stop work on the bill.
Jourová will be in Warsaw next week to hold talks with Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, responsible for most of the judicial changes. EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders was due to meet one of Ziobro’s deputies in Zagreb on Friday.
The political opposition has seized on the growing tensions with Brussels to warn that PiS’s policies could lead to Poland being pushed out of the EU.
“I don’t know how the government and the president will react. I do know how the EU and the U.S. will react — I expect tough opposition to such a policy,” said Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of the opposition Civic Platform party.