Poland is going to abolish its controversial disciplinary chamber for judges criticized by the European Union. The Polish parliament approved this on Thursday, international news agencies report. Due to the reforms, the Central European country will most likely finally be able to claim more than EUR 35 billion from the European corona recovery fund, provided the European Commission agrees to the Polish recovery plans in early June.
For a long time Poland was embroiled in a dispute with the European Union about stripping the rule of law in Poland. In the summer of last year, the European Court ruled that Poland must stop punishing independent judges, instituted in 2017 by the conservative-nationalist government. Critical judges in the country are financially punished or removed from office through a politicized disciplinary chamber. The disciplinary chamber made Polish judges susceptible to political pressure and was therefore “contrary to EU law”, the Court found.
Reforms
Once the reforms are implemented, disciplinary cases will be heard by judges selected by lottery. At the moment this is still done by a council of judges composed by the Polish parliament, where the Polish ruling party has an absolute majority. In addition, it will no longer be possible to subject judges to an independence test after a verdict — i.e. with retroactive effect.
Critics believe that the reforms do not go far enough to guarantee independent justice in Poland. According to the right-conservative State Secretary for Justice Sebastian Kaleta does take all important doubts into account in the final version.
In October last year, the European Court imposed a rare penalty of one million euros a day on Poland for refusing to close the disciplinary chamber for judges. In mid-January, Poland asked for a postponement of payment, as it was already in the process of abolishing the disciplinary chamber. Then the European Commission announced that it would deduct the unpaid fines from the subsidies it provided to the EU member state.
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