All of Poland’s main centrist and left-wing opposition parties, along with a number of civil society groups, have jointly signed an agreement listing measures to roll back the government’s overhaul of the justice system and end the “devastating conflict” with the European Union.
The so-called Agreement for the Rule of Law (Porozumienie dla Praworządności) outlines steps for Poland to fulfil its obligations to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which is currently issuing daily fines of €1 million against the country for failing to comply with a ruling to suspend its disciplinary chamber for judges.
Organizacje pozarządowe, wspólnie ze środowiskiem sędziów i prokuratorów, opracowały propozycje zmian niezbędnych do przywrócenia w Polsce państwa prawa:#RuleOfLaw pic.twitter.com/JQflsYCZ27
— Lex Super Omnia (@lex_super_omnia) November 5, 2021
The document was today signed by ten political parties, including the centrist Civic Platform (PO), liberal Modern (Nowoczesna), agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL), the New Left (Nowa Lewica), Left Together (Lewica Razem), and centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050).
Those larger parties were joined by the smaller Greens (Zieloni), centre-left Polish Initiative, the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), and the centrist Union of European Democrats (UED). Together, the ten parties hold over 40% of seats in parliament and almost 50% of public support according to an average of recent polling.
Their agreement was developed in cooperation with judicial organisations – including Iustitita, Themis and Lex Super Omnia – and was also signed by civic protest groups Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD), Citizens of the Republic (Obywatele RP) and All-Poland Women’s Strike (Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet).
The signatories today unveiled a ten-point plan to restore the independence of the judiciary, which they call a “sine qua non condition for democracy, independent election oversight and the protection of individual rights”.
As a priority, the agreement calls for the reinstatement of two judges critical of the government’s judicial policies who have faced disciplinary action, Igor Tuleya and Paweł Juszczyszyn. It says that the so-called “muzzle law” that strengthened the disciplinary system for judges critical of the government’s reforms should be abolished.
It also demands the scrapping of the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court created by the government, which a number of international and domestic bodies (including the Supreme Court itself) have deemed illegitimate.
The signatories also call for reform of the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), the body that appoints judges. They argue that all of the KRS’s new members, who have been appointed by parliament, should be removed and replaced by a new set appointed by judges themselves, as was previously the case.
They also call for all judicial appointments made by what they see as the illegitimate KRS to be rolled back. The rulings of those judges, however, would remain in place but could be challenged by the sides in the disputes.
The agreement likewise calls for changes in the composition of the Constitutional Tribunal, as well as the separation of the offices of the prosecutor general and justice minister, which were fused in 2016 and have since then been held by Zbigniew Ziobro.
Speaking today, Michał Wawrykiewicz of the Free Courts (Wolne Sądy) group said that “no country has questioned the European legal order in such an obvious and ostentatious way as the Polish government has done in the last few years”.
The signatories said that a team would be established to work on legislation to effect their demands. “This bill makes it possible to end not only the political madness of Zbigniew Ziobro, but above all it allows [us] to activate EU funds, which are blocked,” said Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a PO MP.
Poland is currently locked in its latest standoff with the EU, whose institutions have repeatedly found the Polish government to have violated the rule of law. That has resulted in daily fines from the CJEU and the disbursement of EU funds being blocked.
Poland’s ruling coalition argues that its judicial reforms have been necessary to improve the functioning of the courts and to purge communist judges from the system. It denies that they violate the rule of law, and argues that in fact the EU has done so by illegitimately “interfering” in Poland’s judicial system.
Main image credit: Adam Stepien / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
