The new center-left government’s judicial reforms in Poland continue to meet stubborn resistance from the country’s conservatives, who were voted out of office.
President Andrzej Duda, the last empowered representative of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, referred the new government’s changes to the National Council of the Judiciary, the Constitutional Court, for review.
The measure was announced by the head of Duda’s chancellery, Malgorzata Paprocka, in Warsaw on Friday. She called the new regulations “blatantly unconstitutional” in July. The law cannot come into force without Duda’s signature.
The National Council of the Judiciary in Poland appoints judges to vacant positions and protects the independence of the courts. In 2018, the PiS government decided that 15 of the council’s 25 members should be appointed by parliament – previously, judges determined the majority of members.
This brought Poland into conflict with the European Commission. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) also criticized the fact that the National Council for the Judiciary is no longer independent.
The EU dropped the case against Poland because the new Prime Minister’s government Donald Tusk promised to restore the independence of the judiciary.
However, the road to achieving this is long and arduous. In the future, the judiciary will once again fill 15 of the 25 positions in the National Council of the Judiciary, through free elections.
Under the reform, directors appointed since 2017 will no longer be eligible for election. Duda disagrees with this point, saying there is no reason to exclude judges from election based on their appointment date.
