Poland sought to intimidate judge critical of government reforms, finds European court

The Polish authorities violated the rights of a judge critical of government reforms by removing him from his position without the possibility of legal recourse and using state bodies to “intimidate him because of the views he had expressed in defence of the rule of law”, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has found.

The judge in question, Waldemar Żurek, had been spokesman for the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), the body responsible for appointing judges and safeguarding their independence.

However, in 2018 he and other members of the KRS were removed as part of the government’s overhaul of the institution, which brought it under greater political control.

Żurek took the issue to the ECtHR, arguing that he had been denied the right to legally challenge his premature removal from the KRS. He also argued that the authorities had taken a number of actions intended to punish him for speaking out against the government’s policies.

That included the Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA) auditing his financial declarations, the justice ministry ordering an inspection of his work as a judge in Kraków’s regional court, the declassification of his financial declaration, and the launching of at least five sets of disciplinary proceedings against him.

The Strasbourg court, in a ruling issued yesterday, found that the fact Żurek had been denied the right to judicial review of his premature dismissal violated his right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

As in a similar ruling in favour of another Polish judge, Jan Grzęda, earlier this year, the ECtHR “emphasised the overall context of the various judicial reforms undertaken by the Polish government….which had resulted in the weakening of judicial independence”.

In yesterday’s ruling, the ECtHR also found that there has been “a strategy aimed at intimidating (or even silencing) the applicant because of his views”, and that this had violated his right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the ECHR.

The court noted, for example, that the inspection of Żurek’s work by the justice ministry was launched just one day after the receipt of an anonymous complaint that “concerned his criticism of the reform of the judiciary rather than any alleged misconduct”.

An audit of his financial statements was “triggered by some unspecified irregularity and lasted 17 months without any concrete results”, added the ECtHR.

The court noted that, as “one of the most important figures of the judicial community in Poland”, Żurek “not only had the right but a duty to speak out in defence of the rule of law and judicial independence”.

It warned that the measures taken against him “undoubtedly had a ‘chilling effect’ in that they had to have discouraged not only the applicant but also other judges from participating in public debate”. The court ordered the Polish state to pay him €15,000 in damages and €10,000 in costs.

The decision is the latest in a series of judgements by Polish and European courts ruling against the Polish government’s overhaul of the KRS.

In 2019, the Polish Supreme Court ruled that the new KRS is “not an impartial and independent body” and this month it found the institution no longer matches the one enshrined in the constitution. In rulings last year and this year the ECHR has also found that the KRS is now “unduly influenced by legislative and executive powers”.

Last year, Poland became the first country ever to be expelled from the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary, which said the new KRS “does not safeguard the independence of the judiciary”.

Main image credit: Grzegorz Celejewski / Agencja Gazeta

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.