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A woman with an EU flag in front of Poland's constitutional court
Photo: Czarek Sokolowski / AP
Poland's Constitutional Court has postponed the decision on the question of whether the country's Basic Law takes precedence over EU law for the eighth time (read more about the situation in Warsaw here).
The court president Julia Przylebska announced that the session that began on Wednesday should continue on September 30.
She is a close confidante of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the ruling PiS party.
The reason given was that new aspects had been put forward.
The court therefore needs time to formulate questions about it.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had asked the constitutional judges to review a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) from March.
In it, the top EU judges found that EU law can force member states to disregard individual provisions in national law.
This applies even when it comes to constitutional law.
Because of the reforms, the EU Commission has already opened several infringement proceedings against the government in Warsaw and has filed lawsuits with the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
Among other things, the Brussels authority has doubts about the independence of the Polish constitutional court.
Brussels is holding back corona aid
The Brussels Commission is currently withholding billions in Corona aid for Poland because there are concerns about whether the rule of law is being observed in the country.
The responsible EU Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis recently said that the open question of the primacy of EU law also played a role.
However, Poland's government within the EU is not alone in its doubts about the priority of EU law.
From the point of view of the Federal Constitutional Court, it is also disputed whether judgments of the European Court of Justice generally have priority over judgments by national courts.
In May 2020, the Karlsruhe judges objected to the European Central Bank's bond purchases worth billions - and thus opposed a CJEU ruling for the first time.
The constitutional judges argued that the central bank had overstretched its mandate for monetary policy with the program launched in 2015.
The Federal Government and the Bundestag should work to ensure that Europe's monetary authorities check retrospectively whether the purchases are proportionate.
This has now happened, as the court found in a decision at the end of April.
In the dispute over the judgment, the EU Commission announced the initiation of infringement proceedings against Germany in June
as / dpa
