Poland’s opposition Civic Platform party on Tuesday said it will file an appeal to the country’s highest constitutional court, asking it to rule on whether a new law that deeply changes the functioning of the court itself violates the constitution.
The new law should be “thrown on the ash heap of history,” Borys Budka, an MP with the party, told reporters.
Polish President Andrzej Duda defied mounting international criticism and concern in Brussels over the new government’s adherence to democratic rules and signed the bill into law on Monday.
The changes, rushed through Parliament last week, mean decisions by the Constitutional Tribunal, which rules on the constitutionality of laws passed by Parliament, now require a two-thirds majority and more judges present at hearings, as well as changing the order in which the court hears cases. The president and justice minister can bring disciplinary proceedings against a justice.
“After analysis and reflection, I remain clear,” Duda told reporters. “I consider that this change will help strengthen the status and role of the constitutional court.”
But critics charge that the changes will prevent the tribunal from functioning effectively, making it possible for the right-wing Law and Justice party government to ignore the constitution in its program to dramatically change the country’s institutions.
“The law is completely unconstitutional,” Sławomir Neumann, a Civic Platform MP, told Polish radio.
The fight over the shape of the tribunal has prompted rival demonstrations for and against the government and has deeply divided the country.
There is also a battle over just who gets to sit on the 15-member tribunal. The outgoing parliament, dominated by Civic Platform, elected five judges, of whom the tribunal later ruled that only three had been properly chosen. Duda has refused to swear in any of those judges, instead swearing in five rival judges chosen by the new parliament where Law and Justice has an absolute majority. The tribunal hasn’t let them start judging cases.
The tussle over the tribunal is raising international alarm, as concern grows over the direction being taken by one of the EU’s largest countries. The European Commission’s first vice president Frans Timmermans wrote to the Polish government last week, pressing for the reforms to be stopped “until all questions regarding the impact of this law on the independence and functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal have been fully and properly assessed.”
Timmermans wrote that the Commission “attaches great importance to preventing the emergence of situations whereby the rule of law in (a) member state could be called into question.”
Duda said Monday he hoped his backing the changes to the court “will calm things down.”