 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
The Polish Supreme Court Disciplinary Chamber law is legislation that defines conduct standards for the majority of Polish judiciary, namely the common and military courts and the Supreme Court, albeit excluding the administrative courts and the tribunals. It was enacted by the Sejm (223 to 205) on 20 December 2019.
The bill establishes the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court and empowers it to common, military and Supreme Court justices who engage in "political activity", including questioning the political independence of the panel. [1] Punishments may include a fine, reduction of salary, or termination from their position. [1] In comparison with other chambers, the law curbs the powers of the First President of the Supreme Court in regard to the Disciplinary Chamber in favor of the President of the Chamber, making it effectively “an autonomous body which only nominally is within the structure of the Supreme Court”.
The law also changed the manner in which the head of the Supreme Court of Poland is appointed. The Law and Justice party had previously attempted to oust the current head, Małgorzata Gersdorf, and her term expired in 2020. [2] This gives the government, in effect, the ability to control and sack judges. The legislation violates EU judicial system standards. [3]
The bill was born as a continuation of the legislation following the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis, further exerting political control on the courts.
Critics of the law called it draconian, and demonstrations against it took place throughout Poland.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the bill "risks further undermining the already heavily challenged independence of the judiciary in Poland". [4] The EU urged Poland not to pass the bill, and to consult the Venice Commission, yet it passed. [5] The Association of Judges of Ireland condemned the Polish legislation. [6] Koen Lenaerts, President of the Court of Justice of the European Union, warned that "You can’t be a member of the European Union if you don’t have independent, impartial courts operating in accordance with fair trial rule, upholding union law". [7]
The Polish Supreme Court stated that the bill was a "continuation of the lawlessness of the 1980s". According to the court: "Everything is there: a ban on the freedom of speech by judges, the establishment of a surveillance mechanism and a drastic reduction of their right to have profiles on social networks". [8] The Court further said that Poland overruling the primacy of EU law may force it out of the bloc. [9] [10]
Donald Tusk, former European Council president, warned the bill might force Poland out of the EU. Ombudsman Adam Bodnar said the law "violates the Constitution and the ground rules of the rule of law" and "would definitively put Polish courts and judges under the control of the legislative and executive branches of government". Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers Diego García Sayán and President of the European Association of Judges José Igreja Matos warned the legislation "runs contrary to judicial independence". [11]
The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the Committee for the Defence of Democracy organized protests throughout Poland against the bill. [9] [12]
José Igreja Matos, president of the European Association of Judges, stated on 18 January 2021 that "the muzzle law should be immediately blocked to put an end to the current dangerous intimidation of independent judges". [13]
The government of Poland takes the form of a unitary parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. However, its form of government has also been identified as semi-presidential.
The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, relevant to UK constitutional law. It provides for a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to take over the previous appellate jurisdiction of the Law Lords as well as some powers of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and removed the functions of Speaker of the House of Lords and Head of the Judiciary of England and Wales from the office of Lord Chancellor.
The judicial system of Ukraine is outlined in the 1996 Constitution of Ukraine. Before this there was no notion of judicial review nor any Supreme court since 1991's Ukrainian independence when it started being slowly restructured.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, and for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. As the United Kingdom’s highest appellate court for these matters, it hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population.
The Supreme Court is the highest court in the Republic of Poland. It is located in the Krasiński Square, Warsaw.
The General Council of the Judiciary is the national council of the judiciary of Spain. It is the constitutional body that governs all the Judiciary of Spain, such as courts, and judges, as it is established by the Spanish Constitution of 1978, article 122 and developed by the Organic Law 6/1985 of the Judicial Power (LOPJ). The President of the CGJP is also the president of the Supreme Court.
The Court of Cassation, officially called the Supreme Court of Appeals of the Republic of Turkey, is the last instance for reviewing verdicts given by courts of criminal and civil justice in Turkey.
Zbigniew Tadeusz Ziobro is a Polish politician. He served as the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland in the Cabinet of Mateusz Morawiecki until 27 November 2023. He previously served in the same role from October 2005 to November 2007, simultaneously serving as the Public Prosecutor General. He was elected to the Sejm on 25 September 2005 in the 13th Kraków district, running on the Law and Justice party list. He received over 120,000 votes in the parliamentary election, the highest percentage constituency results in the election.
The Judiciary of the Czech Republic is set out in the Constitution, which defines courts as independent institutions within the constitutional framework of checks and balances.
The judiciary of Poland are the authorities exercising the judicial power of the Polish state on the basis of Chapter 8 of the Constitution of Poland. As in almost all countries of continental Europe, the Polish judiciary operates within the framework of civil law.
The Committee for the Defence of Democracy, CDD is a Polish-born civic organization and NGO which among its goals includes promoting the European values, especially democracy, rule of law, and human rights. It was founded in November 2015 by a group of citizens including Mateusz Kijowski, in anticipation of the Polish constitutional crisis, 2015. The organization declares its independence of any political parties and that it has no intention to transform into one. It is opposed to the actions of the government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party.
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal crisis has been an ongoing political conflict in Poland starting in the second half of 2015 over the appointment of five of the 15 judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Poland has been a member state of the European Union since 1 May 2004, with the Treaty of Accession 2003 signed on 16 April 2003 in Athens as the legal basis for Poland's accession to the EU. The actual process of integrating Poland into the EU began with Poland's application for membership in Athens on 8 April 1994, and then the confirmation of the application by all member states in Essen from 9–10 December 1994. Poland's integration into the European Union is a dynamic and continuously ongoing process.
The National Council of the Judiciary is the national council of the judiciary of Poland. It is a public body in Poland responsible for nominating judges and reviewing ethical complaints against sitting jurists.
Małgorzata Maria Gersdorf is a Polish lawyer and judge who served as the First President of the Supreme Court of Poland. She was appointed in 2014 and her six-year term ended on 30 April, 2020.
Igor Zygmunt Tuleya is a Polish lawyer, judge at the district court of Warsaw and former spokesperson for this court. He is known for his criticism on government prosecutorial practices and his protests against judicial reforms, which he sees as a threat to the independence of the Polish judiciary.
Since 2017, a series of protests against judiciary reforms have occurred in Poland. Since Law and Justice took power in Poland in 2015, its influence rapidly extended to the judicial branch, through contended nominations that produced the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The Law and Justice party argues that the reforms are needed to improve the efficiency of the judiciary, but the opposition, supported by a significant number of members of the judiciary, has been very critical of the reforms. The reforms have also been criticized by a number of international bodies. The European Commission invokes the Article 7 of the European Treaty against E.U. member Poland, denouncing recent judiciary reforms putting it under the political control of the ruling majority and citing "serious risk [to] the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers".
The Polish constitutional crisis, also known as the Polish rule-of-law crisis, is a political conflict ongoing since 2015 in which the Polish government has been accused of failing to comply with European and Polish constitutional law. The 2015 elections resulted in the Law and Justice party winning control of both the presidency and the parliament. With this government trifecta, PiS used its power to appoint judges to the Constitutional Tribunal in 2015, leading to the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The government of Poland continued to expand its hold on the judiciary resulting in the 2017 Supreme Court crisis, and the 2019 Polish judicial disciplinary panel law. These events allowed the legislature and executive of the Polish government to have de facto control over judges and their appointments.
A Polish withdrawal from the European Union, or Polexit, is the name given to a hypothetical Polish withdrawal from the European Union. The term was coined after Brexit, the process of Britain's withdrawal from the EU which took place between 2016 and 2020. Opinion polls held in the country, between 2016 and 2021, indicated majority support for continued membership of the European Union (EU). A 2022 survey indicated that "[at] least eight-in-ten adults in Poland" believed that the EU "promotes peace, democratic values and prosperity". The 2023 Polish parliamentary election was won by a coalition of predominantly pro-EU parties.
Sylwia Marta Gregorczyk-Abram is a Polish attorney and social activist.
