Polish Constitutional Tribunal crisis (2015 – ongoing)
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The Polish Constitutional Tribunal crisis has been an ongoing political conflict in Poland starting in the second half of 2015 over the appointment of five of the 15 judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. The reason given is: Polish president signed into law a bill that strikes down a disciplinary chamber for judges in June 2022, a necessary step for Poland to receive over EUR 35 billion in post-pandemic recovery funds from the European Union. (June 2022) |
In Poland, constitutional judges must be elected by the Lower House, and must take an oath of office before the President. In 2015, the governing Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) party lost both the presidential election and the parliament (Sejm) majority to the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS), which won an unprecedented absolute majority of seats. After the new (eighth) Sejm was seated on 12 November 2015 and the new president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, assumed office on 6 August 2015, the judicial branch would be left as the only branch of the government of Poland not under the control of PiS provided that the due seat replacements were made in advance.
The terms of three constitutional court judges were due to end after the 25 October election but before the new (eighth) Sejm was seated on 12 November 2015. In advance of the 12 November seating of the eighth Sejm, PO attempted to elect five judges to the Constitutional Tribunal, including two whose terms would begin in the month after 12 November, but the new President Duda refused to let any of them take their oaths of office. After PiS took power, they nominated a different set of five judges who were immediately sworn in. Three [lower-alpha 1] were nominated on 2 December 2015 and two others[lower-alpha 2] were nominated the following week. Of the five appointments made by PO, the Constitutional Tribunal itself accepted the first three appointments[lower-alpha 3] and invalidated the last two.[lower-alpha 4] Consequently, of the five appointments made by PiS after the election, the Tribunal accepted the last two PiS appointments[lower-alpha 2] and invalidated the first three.[lower-alpha 1] As none of the five PO appointments were sworn in by the president, this ruling was disputed by the new PiS government, which went on to change the statutes regulating the Court in order to ensure that all five of its nominees sit, thereby furthering its influence on the court – the only remaining branch of government not under PiS control.
The President of the Constitutional Tribunal dictated that the new five judges should not hear cases until the situation was settled; in order to combat this, PiS passed a series of laws through the Sejm and Senate which compelled the Constitutional Tribunal to allow the judges to hear new cases. The new legislation was signed into law on 28 December. In January 2016, the court ruled the five new judges elected by the 8th Sejm were legally appointed, but in March 2016 ruled the new legislation unconstitutional. The latter ruling was ignored by the Polish government, which considered the ruling "advisory".[1][2] The executive and legislative branches' refusal to accept this ruling of the judicial branch thus caused a constitutional crisis. The crisis provoked outrage in the European Union which began an investigation into Poland under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, describing the situation as threatening the rule-of-law.[3][4]
The appointments and amendments caused domestic protests and counter-protests in December and January; one of the most significant outcomes was the creation of the Committee for the Defence of Democracy protest movement.
The law changes were criticized by the European Commission as threatening the "rule of law" and the human rights of Polish citizens.[5][6] As of 20 December 2017[update], the crisis had, according to the European Commission, extended to include "13 laws affecting the entire structure of the justice system in Poland".[5] These changes to the court system precipitated a wider rule-of-law crisis, causing disagreement with the EU and including rollbacks to abortion in Poland.
The 2023 Polish Parliamentary Election, saw Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) oust PiS from government and come back to power with the help of its coalition partners, starting a reversal of the crisis and conflict with the EU, with the newly found majority in the Sejm a resolution confirming the illegal status of some Constitutional Tribunal justices, and the fact that the President of the Constitutional Tribunal was never properly appointed, was pushed through. Rendering all of the court's rulings since the start of the constitutional crisis null, and allowing state organs to ignore them.[7] This move was met with outcry and accusations of unconstitutionality by the largest opposition party Law and Justice
The European Commission cheered the new government's work, unlocking some funds from the Recovery Package that were blocked because of the old government's attack on the rule of law and suggested that the Article 7 procedure against Poland could be lifted one day.[8]