PM requests ruling on supremacy of Polish constitution over EU law

Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has requested that the country’s Constitutional Tribunal issue a ruling confirming the supremacy of Polish over European law. It comes after the government accused the European Court of Justice of “exceeding its competences”.

Government spokesman Piotr Müller announced that on Monday Morawiecki formally filed a petition to the tribunal. The court, which is Poland’s highest constitutional authority, was controversially overhauled in 2016 by the government, with a close associate of the ruling party’s chairman installed as its chief justice.

The government flagged its intention to submit such a request at the start of March, after the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that regulations on appointing judges to the Polish Supreme Court could violate EU law.

For analysis of today's ECJ ruling on Poland see the thread below https://t.co/Pt85LFpsIC

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 2, 2021

Justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro – who has led a judicial overhaul that has repeatedly brought Poland into conflict with Brussels – declared that he “does not recognise” the CJEU’s ruling. Any Polish politician who does so would be “recognising that Poland has ceased to be a sovereign state”, he warned.

Two of Ziobro’s deputy ministers, Sebastian Kaleta and Michał Woś, claimed that the CJEU was seeking to “federalise the EU”. This is “a violation of the treaties and an attempt to annihilate the sovereignty of the member states”, added Kaleta.

Morawiecki then announced that he would ask “the Constitutional Tribunal for a comprehensive settlement of the issue of conflict between European law norms and the Polish constitution”.

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party’s spokeswoman, Anita Czerwińska, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) at the time that parts of the CJEU ruling “question the supremacy of the [Polish] constitution over all [other] sources of law in the Republic of Poland, including the EU treaties”.

na naszych oczach dokonuje się kolejna próba federalizacji UE rękoma sędziów TSUE z pogwałceniem traktatów i próbie unicestwienia suwerenności państw członkowskich. Bo jak inaczej to nazwać, skoro TSUE nakazuje pomijanie Konstytucji w wyłącznie wewnętrznych sprawach?

— Sebastian Kaleta (@sjkaleta) March 2, 2021

“According to the established, longstanding jurisprudence of the Constitutional Tribunal, there is no doubt as to the supremacy of Polish constitutional norms over other legal norms,” said Müller. The CJEU had therefore “exceeded its competences in declaring the supremacy of European law”.

The government’s spokesman also added that courts in a number of other EU member states – including Germany, France and Italy – have “unambiguously…indicated the supremacy of constitutional norms over European law”, reports TOK FM.

By contrast, Iustitia, an association of Polish judges that has opposed the government’s judicial policies, welcomed the CJEU’s “very important” ruling. The court “sees what is happening in Poland and states directly that these actions were introduced purposely to prevent transparency”, said spokeswoman Marcjanna Dębska.

The Constitutional Tribunal has in the past ruled that the EU law does not take precedence over the Polish constitution, notes Gazeta Wyborcza. It found that in cases of a conflict between them, there are three options: for Polish lawmakers to change the constitution, for EU law to be changed, or for Poland to leave the EU.

The Court of Justice already answered the request in Case C-824/18, para. 148. #EUlaw https://t.co/fSQUduGRKz pic.twitter.com/4Bmj0rE0yR

— Peter Van Elsuwege (@P_VanElsuwege) March 29, 2021

Main image credit: Krystian Maj / KPRM (under public domain)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.