Polish courts must ignore “unlawful” suspension of judge critical of government reforms, rules EU court

In the latest European ruling against the Polish government’s judicial reforms, the EU’s top court has ordered Polish courts to disapply all measures stemming from the decision to suspend a judge who is a prominent critic of the government’s judicial reforms.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) noted that the suspension, issued by a disciplinary chamber created as part of those reforms, was issued in breach of EU law.

However, a deputy minister in Poland’s government has responded by calling the ruling “meaningless” and claiming that the “politicised judges of the CJEU” have themselves violated the EU treaties and Polish constitution by issuing a decision intended to support the Polish opposition.

The case concerns Igor Tuleya, a judge who has become a symbol of opposition to the Law and Justice (PiS) government’s overhaul of the judiciary, which has been found by a range of domestic and international bodies to have violated the rule of law.

He was stripped of immunity and suspended under a decision issued by the disciplinary chamber in 2020. However, in a ruling announced today, the CJEU noted that that suspension was issued “in breach of EU law”.

In 2021, the CJEU ordered Poland to provisionally suspend the disciplinary chamber – an order the Polish authorities initially failed to comply with, resulting in large fines – and last month it ruled that the chamber violated European law.

Domestic rulings by Polish courts – including by the Supreme Court itself, in which the disciplinary chamber was based – have also found the chamber to have been unlawful, as has the European Court of Human Rights.

As such, noted the CJEU in announcing its ruling today, “to ensure the primacy of EU law…national courts must refrain from applying…the disciplinary chamber’s resolution” against Tuleya.

The judge must also be allowed to resume his work, found the EU court. His cases that were previously reassigned as a result of his suspension must not be ruled on by other judges and instead restored to Tuleya.

The CJEU noted that, because of the primacy of EU law, such decisions should be made regardless of any contrary national case law and that any judges who make such decisions cannot face disciplinary actions for doing so.

Tuleya has in fact already been allowed to return to work, after the professional responsibility chamber – which replaced the disciplinary chamber after the latter was abolished last year – confirmed in November 2022 that he had committed no criminal offence.

However, as the ECHR noted in a separate ruling in favour of Tuleya last week, the lifting of his immunity has not been overturned and he continues to face criminal proceedings.

Today’s CJEU ruling was welcomed by IUSTITIA, an association of Polish judges that has campaigned against the government’s judicial policies.

“This is another victory for the Polish constitution, EU law and the steadfast judges over the lawlessness introduced by the government into the Polish justice system,” tweeted IUSTITIA.

However, the ruling was condemned by Janusz Kowalski, a deputy agriculture minister who hails from the same party – Sovereign Poland (Suwerenna Polska), a junior partner in the ruling coalition – as justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro.

“The CJEU’s judgment on the Igor Tuleya case is meaningless for Poland,” tweeted Kowalski. “There is no acceptance of violations of the Polish constitution and EU treaties by the politicised judges of the CJEU brazenly supporting the anarchisation of the Polish justice system by the total opposition.”

The PiS-led government has argued that its reforms of the judiciary were necessary to hold judges – who were previously a self-governing “caste” – to greater account for their actions.

It denies that they violate the rule of law and says that such claims are part of an attempt by the domestic opposition with support from international bodies to remove PiS from power.

Main image credit: Grzegorz Bukala / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Alicja Ptak

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