Poland violated rights of judge critical of government reforms, rules European court

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled in favour of a prominent Polish judge critical of the government, finding “multiple violations” of his rights to a fair trial, respect for his private life and his freedom of expression.

The Strasbourg court ordered Poland to pay the judge, Igor Tuleya, €30,000 in compensation and €6,000 in costs and legal fees. However, a Polish deputy justice minister has declared that the ECHR’s ruling has no binding effect.

Tuleya has become a symbol of opposition to the Law and Justice (PiS) government’s overhaul of the judiciary. Meanwhile, he has been pursued by prosecutors seeking to bring criminal charges against him, was stripped of immunity, and barred from working as a judge.

As a result of his treatment, Tuleya filed a case to the ECHR arguing that his rights under various sections of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated. The court today ruled in his favour.

It found, first, that his right to a fair trial has been violated because the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court that lifted his immunity to face criminal charges was, as two previous ECHR rulings have found, not a “tribunal established by law”.

The ECHR noted that, despite the professional responsibility chamber – which replaced the disciplinary chamber after the latter was abolished last year – confirming in November 2022 that Tuleya had committed no criminal offence, the lifting of his immunity has not been overturned and he continues to face criminal proceedings.

Second, the ECHR found that the measures taken against Tuleya had called his integrity and reputation into question, as well as preventing him from working for over two years, which in turn “had a significant impact on his private life”. This constituted a violation of his right to respect for his private life.

Third, the European court found that the judge’s right to freedom of expression had been violated because “the lifting of Mr Tuleya’s immunity had been a disguised sanction for his expressing criticism of successive judicial reform” and part of “a strategy aimed at intimidating (or even silencing) him for his views”.

“The Court could not accept that there had been any legitimate aim for the interference with Mr Tuleya’s right to freedom of expression,” wrote the ECHR. “He had steadily defended the rule of law and independence of the judiciary, without going beyond criticism from a strictly professional perspective.”

The treatment of Tuleya, noted the ECHR, would have discouraged not only him from speaking out but also other judges. Last year, the court ruled that the suspension of another judge who has opposed the Polish government’s judicial reforms, Paweł Juszczyszyn, violated his rights.

In response to today’s judgement, deputy justice minister Sebastian Kaleta noted that Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (TK) last year ruled that the ECHR is not entitled to assess the legality of Polish judicial appointments.

“Therefore, the ruling issued today [by the ECHR] has no binding effect on Poland,” tweeted Kaleta.

However, the ECHR itself has found that the TK, a body widely seen as being under the influence of the PiS party, is not a “tribunal established by law” because it contains illegitimately appointed judges.

Main image credit: Maciek Jazwiecki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Alicja Ptak

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