The way the Polish government is turning the justice system upside down violates EU law, says the ECJ - once again. This time, harsh consequences are possible.
Luxembourg/Warsaw - Poland has finally suffered a legal defeat: the EU's highest court has overturned further aspects of Poland's controversial judicial reform as incompatible with the fundamental values of the international community. Accordingly, the possibility of publishing the membership of judges, for example in associations, organisations or parties, violates EU law. This is an unlawful invasion of privacy, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Monday (5 June) in Luxembourg.
In particular, the Disciplinary Chamber for judges, which has since been abolished, has undermined judicial independence. The ECJ also made it clear that the Polish rules did not guarantee access to an independent and impartial court. That includes the possibility for national courts to verify that they themselves or other courts comply with the requirements laid down in EU law.
Poland suffers defeat at the ECJ: Controversial PiS judicial reform could become even more expensive
The ruling from Luxembourg could also have an impact on a penalty payment previously imposed in summary proceedings. The payments previously imposed on Poland are now expiring for formal reasons, but the EU Commission can apply for a penalty payment again. Because Warsaw refused to implement earlier ECJ rulings, the Court of Justice had finally imposed a penalty payment of one million euros per day within the case that has now been decided. The sentence was halved in the spring because the government has since made some changes to the judicial system.
Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland. © Michal Dyjuk/AP/dpa/Archivbild
In February, the EU Commission again sued Poland for violations of EU law by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal.
For Warsaw, the procedures are delicate, because there is now also a lot of money at stake: The EU Commission is withholding several billion euros from the Corona recovery fund for Poland because it has doubts about the justice system there. Due to violations of the rule of law, the EU Commission has already withheld billions of euros in funding for Poland. The government in Warsaw rejects the accusation.
Poland before the election: Protests against PiS in Warsaw
This time, the judges listed several points of the reform implemented by the right-wing nationalist ruling party PiS as damaging the independence of the judiciary and thus as undermining the law. "The Polish judicial reform of December 2019 violates EU law," the court noted. "The values of the rule of law are an integral part of the identity of the European Union."
PiS has ruled the country since 2015, and the next parliamentary elections are scheduled for October or November. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Warsaw against the government. On the 34th anniversary of the first democratic elections in Poland after the war, government critics from all over the country travelled to the capital. The liberal opposition had declared the rally to be a test of whether the PiS can be voted out of office this year after almost eight years in government. (rtr/dpa/fn
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