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Poland: 1460 Days Later: Rule of Law in Poland R.I.P. (Part I)

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Country/Region

23 January 2020

An extended analysis of the Polish government's attacks on the rule-of-law.

"On 13 January 2016, exactly four years ago today, the Commission activated its rule of law framework for the very first time with respect to Poland (for our previous 2-part post assessing the situation as of 13 January 2019 see here).

During this time, Poland has become the first EU Member State:

• to be threatened with the payment of a penalty payment of at least €100,000 per day should it continue to ignore an interim order adopted by the ECJ in July 2017;
• to be subject to the exceptional procedure laid down in Article 7(1) TEU in December 2017;
• to have seen its newly “redesigned” National Council of the Judiciary suspended from the European Networks of Councils for the Judiciary for its lack of independence in August 2018;
• to have seen its self-described “judicial reforms” provisionally suspended by the Court of Justice via two interim orders in October and December 2018;
• to have been found by the Court of Justice to have failed to fulfil its Treaty obligations under the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU not once but twice in June and November 2019;
• to have been referred to the Court of Justice by the Commission for making it possible to subject ordinary court judges to disciplinary investigations, procedures and sanctions on the basis of the content of their judicial decisions, including the exercise of their right under Article 267 TFEU to request preliminary rulings from the Court of Justice.

As if to outdo itself when it comes to annihilating judicial independence, Poland’s ruling party has rushed an unprecedented piece of legislation last month."

1460 Days Later: Rule of Law in Poland R.I.P. (Part I) (Verfassungsblog, link)