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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union's top court warned on Friday to suspend a law forcing some of the country's Supreme Court judges in early retirement, and reinstate those who have already been dismissed.
The logo of the European Court of Justice is pictured outside the main courtroom in Luxembourg January 26, 2017. Picture taken January 26, 2017. REUTERS / Francois Lenoir
The injunction, issued by the European Court of Justice, marks a new phase in an investigation by EU authorities into a political reforms in which Brussels argues are undermining democracy and judicial independence.
Poland's governing nationalist law and justice (PiS) party, which has been ignored by the court of law, effectively allowing it to pick up the country's top judges.
Since its implementation, over 20 Supreme Court Judges – around one-third of the total – have been forced to quit.
In the interim, the ECJ is hereby "suspended" from the Commission, "adding the order applied retroactively to the Judges of the Supreme Court concerned by those provisions."
A final judgment will come at a later date, the ECJ said.
Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the government would review the court's order.
"I can say that it is definitely going to be a position," he told reporters on the EU-Asia summit in Brussels.
The EU investigation, brought under article 7 of the bloc's treaty.
But in practice any concrete penalty is unlikely to be unanimously among EU governments. Hungary, itself under an article 7 investigation, has repeatedly said it would not back any sanctions against Poland.
Reporting By Jan Strupczewski, Editing by Gabriela Baczynska and John Stonestreet
