European Court: Judges removed from office Poland must return

The European Court said Friday that the Polish government should end forced retirement and replace more than 20 of the 72 Supreme Court justices. Judges dismissed by President Andrzej Duda as President of the Supreme Court must be reinstated.

The decision of the Court is an interim measure, pending the judgment of the European Commission. September. According to the Commission, the Polish Government of Justice and Justice (PiS) infringes European law and undermines the "principle of independent justice" by reducing the retirement age of high-level judges from 70 to 65 years. This measure comes after the PiS national conservatives, according to the Commission, have already placed a series of other courts and judicial bodies "under the control of the ruling majority".

The Polish Supreme Court determines in particular whether the results of the elections are valid. Without the provisional measure adopted by the Court in Luxembourg on Friday, Rosario Silva de Lapuerta, Vice-President of the European Court, said that "there is a real risk that the plaintiffs of justice will suffer serious and irreparable harm". Indeed, access to an independent judge is no longer guaranteed.

The question now is whether Warsaw will comply with the decision of the Court. "An answer to this situation will be necessary," said Krzysztof Szczerski, chief of the cabinet of President Duda in front of the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza but "to exercise the law retroactively is impossible". Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said his cabinet would "respond after analyzing" the court's decision.

The precise implications of these statements have not yet been clarified, but they have fueled the fear that Warsaw will continue to push the confrontation with Brussels and other EU Member States. In early October, President Duda was not impressed by the Commission's complaint, nor by the ban of a Polish court, when he appointed 27 new members to the Supreme Court. According to Silva de Lapuerta, this decision by Duda played a role in the decision of the European Court to act now.

If the government ignores the decision of the Court, Polish case law threatens to isolate itself within the European Union. Judges from various Member States, including the Netherlands, have already suspended the extradition of Polish suspects to the Polish justice system, as the independence of judges is not guaranteed.