Supreme Court chief calls on EU to stop “bullying” Poland

The chief justice of Poland’s Supreme Court, Małgorzata Manowska, has accused the EU of “bullying” her country by demanding further changes to its judicial system to unlock EU funds and continuing to levy €1 million daily fines.

“I do not understand why we are causing such excitement in Brussels,” Manowska, who was appointed to the role by President Andrzej Duda in 2020 in controversial circumstances, told the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily.

“After [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen’s recent statements, I get the impression that this is not about the rule of law,” she continued, adding that she “would simply like this bullying of Poland to finally come to an end”.

Manowska appears to be referring to remarks made by von der Leyen last month, in which the Europeam Commission chief responded to a newly passed law reforming Poland’s disciplinary regime for judges, which was intended to meet “milestones” agreed with Brussels to unlock billions in EU funds.

von der Leyen warned that the law on its own does not meet the commission’s requirements as it does “not ensure that judges are able to question the status of another judge without risking being subject to disciplinary offence…This issue still has to be addressed to…unlock the first payment”.

Manowska, however, cast doubt on von der Leyen’s claim. “Please show me an example of at least one country where it is possible to challenge the appointment of judges,” Manowska told Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

“The commission has crossed a red line by demanding that every judge in Poland be able to check the status of another judge at will,” said Manowska. “I don’t know whether the president of the European Commission has a legal education, but I treat her words as a kind of slip of the tongue.”

The Supreme Court chief justice also questioned why Poland is still facing €1 million daily fines from the EU for failing to comply with a European Court of Justice order to suspend the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court.

The chamber was finally shut down last month, a year after the ECJ ruling. It was immediately replaced with a new body, the chamber of professional responsibility, that will perform a similar function but with judges chosen in a different manner.

“In the case of the disciplinary chamber, among other things, doubts were raised about the autonomy of this chamber within the structure of the Supreme Court and the fact that only so-called new judges were included in its composition,” said Manowska.

“These two premises have now fallen,” she explained, adding that she “doesn’t understand why [fines] are still being levied and I don’t know what to do to end it”.

Both issues to which Manowska referred are part of a long-running dispute over the legality of the appointment of judges after the government’s 2017 overhaul the body responsible for nominating judges, the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), which brought it under greater political influence.

All of the judges of the disciplinary chamber were elected by the reformed KRS, a body that the Supreme Court itself has ruled “is not an impartial and independent body”, a finding confirmed by the European Court of Human Rights.

Members of the new chamber of professional responsibility will in theory be selected from judges appointed by both the “old” and “new” KRS. Manowski – who was herself nominated to the Supreme Court by the “new” KRS is today expected to draw 33 candidates for the chamber from existing Supreme Court judges. President Duda, a government ally, will then choose the final 11 members from that list.

Main photo credit: ojo666 / flickr.com (under CC BY-ND 2.0

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.