Poland’s constitutional tribunal has declared war on Warsaw’s national conservative government after judges dismissed as unconstitutional a series of reforms which they say will paralyse the court.
The constitutional tribunal ruled on Wednesday that Poland’s December 22nd Bill, changing the court’s inner workings, was at odds with the constitution.
Their closely watched ruling has put the court on a collision course with the government of prime minister Beata Szydlo.
Ahead of the ruling, she signalled that she would view it as invalid and may decline to publish it in the official state gazette, the last step for making the court’s rulings law.
The new Bill introduced a higher, two-thirds quorum for constitutional tribunal rulings and obliged the 15-member court to hear cases in the order in which they were filed. Another contested change requires a quorum of 13 judges for rulings to be valid.
But court president Justice Andrzej Rzeplinski and a majority of his colleagues rejected these changes as a clear breach of the constitutional foundations of the state.
Their ruling is the latest round in a high-stakes row between the court, Poland’s highest judicial authority, and the new government, elected last October.
Political bias
On taking office the national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party worked quickly with the PiS president Andrzej Duda to reform the court.
Their moves were essential to end political bias in the court, they said; opposition figures viewed the changes as a poorly disguised effort to sideline Poland’s last remaining independent institution.
Among their interventions, the new Polish government set aside the controversial appointment of five new constitutional judges by the previous administration and, in a late-night procedure, appointed its own.
In doing so, the government and president pre-empted the constitutional tribunal’s own ruling on the appointments, which found two incorrect but three in order.
Controversy flared again over the December Bill, which the government in Warsaw said would improve court procedures by forcing the tribunal to work through cases in the order in which they were lodged.
Critics said this would paralyse the tribunal, preventing it from prioritising challenges to the PiS government, no matter how grave the constitutional principle raised.
Trapped in a vicious circle, a majority of justices said on Wednesday that adopting the new Bill on their procedures would paralyse the tribunal and make it unable to judge constitutionality of the Bill itself.
Instead they assessed the new Bill on the basis of the constitution - and found it wanting.
Concerns expressed
The US, European Union and Council of Europe have already expressed grave concerns about the changes to Poland's rule of law, including efforts to bring state broadcast media under government control.
A leaked draft of a report by the Venice Commission, a body within the Council of Europe, said changes pushed by PiS threaten the rule of law, human rights and democratic order in Poland.
With the non-binding report due to be published on Friday, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has already signalled that Warsaw will not heed it.
