Today’s speech by Donald Tusk and Adam Bodnar and the announcement of changes, or rather specific purges, among Polish judges, has provoked a very negative reception from a significant part of the legal community in our country.
Today, Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Justice Minister Adam Bodnar presented the draft provisions regarding the status of judges appointed after 2017; some of the so-called promotions – as PiS’s fierce opponents call them – “new judges” should be withdrawn. Procedures are needed to resume cases involving so-called new judges who can influence decisions, but the system must be stable – the head of the Justice Ministry stressed.
READ MORE: Bodnar wants total anarchy in the state. He announces that “neo-judges” will be brought to justice, to self-criticism and to the resumption of proceedings
Poor reception of government plans
A significant part of the legal community in Poland, headed by the chairwoman of the National Council of the Judiciary, reacted very negatively to the government’s announcement of changes to the judicial system, which could easily be called a “cut through”.
Adam Bodnar’s words regarding the expression of so-called “active repentance,” which brings to mind self-criticism made by officials or employees of communist bloc countries.
@MS_GOV_PL @Adbodnar planned a kind of secular confession for some judges appointed in 2018-2024, the so-called “active repentance”. This resembles self-criticism (from Russian: Самокритика), that is, a public admission by a certain person of political mistakes committed or attributed to him. Self-criticism was an important element of the political ritual during the Stalinist period, when apparatchik leaders felt or were forced to self-criticize. For some, disciplinary proceedings before a special commission. For what? Yes, for legal action: taking up positions in the judiciary, supporting @KRS_RP. Do you remember any period in history?
— Dagmara Pawełczyk-Woicka wrote in X.
Deputy Prosecutor General Michał Ostrowski stressed that the current government’s appointees in the judiciary are illegally usurping the right to perform these functions.
ACTIVE MOURNING. Well, there won’t be any in the Prosecutor’s Office. All these Bilewiczes, Korneluks and their appointees will not understand active mourning. Because it does not apply to the permanent and conscious violation of the law. You are illegal. Of my own free will. Over coffee, let’s once again discuss the rules and the method of forcible dismissal of the National Prosecutor Dariusz Barski without the consent of the President of the Republic of Poland. It won’t expire so quickly.
— wrote in X Michał Ostrowski.
Lawyer Bartosz Lewandowski of the College of Sovereignty and the Intervention Centre of the Ordo Iuris Process emphasized in X that judges in Poland are irremovable, which clearly follows from the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland.
According to Art. Section 180 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, judges are irremovable. Judges are appointed for an indefinite period by the President of the Republic of Poland, this being his prerogative (Art. 179 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland). This has been confirmed many times by the Supreme Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court in recent years. Until 1989, it was possible in Poland to dismiss a judge due to the lack of “guarantee” for the proper performance of the office. I understand that Minister @Adbodnar takes it upon himself to implement a solution that is clearly unconstitutional and at the same time opens – by setting a precedent – the door to the dismissal of judges on various grounds (e.g. unconstitutional competition procedure before the National Council of the Judiciary, confirmed by the decision of @TK_GOV_PL in 2008 in the case SK 56/06). This will be a truly dangerous precedent.
– wrote Dr. Bartosz Lewandowski.
Judge Maciej Nawacki briefly assessed that the head of the Ministry of Justice had nothing to rely on.
@Adbodnar cannot count on active repentance
– wrote Dr. Maciej Nawacki in X.
