More than 2 months after taking the position of head of MS Waldemar Żurek presented a draft alleged regulation of law law. Right after his appointment, the minister declared that working on these provisions was a precedence for him.
– We want to reconstruct the appropriate functioning of justice as shortly as possible. Polish and Polish, our budget pays very large compensation for the chaos we have in the judiciary, for defective judges, judgments that have fallen, but above all for the first violation of our constitution and conventions that bind Poland," said Minister Żurek during the press conference on Thursday.
Objective: to improve proceedings in courts
The Minister, together with the chiefs of the codification commissions Prof. Krystian Markiewicz and Prof. Marek Safjan and their deputy Maria Ejchart and Dariusz Mazur, revealed a comprehensive task of 88 pages. The full name of this proposal is the law on the restoration of the right to an independent and impartial court established by law by regulating the effects of the resolutions of the KRS adopted between 2018 and 2020. These provisions are to be included in the list of legislative work of the Council of Ministers next week.
As the Minister argued, the main nonsubjective of this task is to regulate the position of alleged neo-judges and to improve judicial proceedings and improve the efficiency of the judiciary.
– With this bill we will end the question of neojudges. There'll be no witch piles. We'll do it collectively. (...) If we make an individual assessment of each neojudge, the justice strategy will only take care of itself and it is impossible. Moreover, for those who would be subjected to this individual assessment, professional and individual gehenna may begin," said Żurek.
So what does the Żurek task contain? According to the Minister, "the thought is to repeat all illegal judges' competitions before the legal KRS".
Green, yellow and red
For this purpose, the alleged neo-Judges are to be divided into categories on which their destiny will depend.
The green category includes alleged young judges whose position is to be healed by resolutions of the future KRS. This is simply a group of 1.1 1000 people who will become unquestionable judges after the changes under the Act.
In the yellow group there are judges who were promoted after being assessed by the current KRS. They are to be relegated to their erstwhile positions, but they would have held their current functions for 2 more years per delegation. Then, if they do not resign, they will participate in re-jury competitions.
The next group referred to as red included alleged neo-judges, who performed a different legal profession before the current KRS was established in the procedure. They will lose the position of judges. They will be able to claim a return to their erstwhile profession or to stay in a given court as referendars.
The Minister will decide on the qualification
Importantly, the decision to qualify the alleged neo-judges to individual groups will be taken by the Minister of Justice on the basis of the criteria set out in the Act. – The basis of all these decisions is enshrined in the Act. It's the bill that decides, the minister only makes a list. Even if the minister was mistaken, it would be subject to judicial review by the ultimate Court," explained Deputy Minister of Justice Dariusz Mazur.
Revolution in the ultimate Court
The ministry task besides provides for any insignificant changes to the ultimate Court. According to his assumptions, the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs will be eliminated. The structure of this court will stay the Chamber of Professional Responsibility. After the changes, the judges in this home will be drawn from all ultimate Court judges.
The government besides abolishes an emergency action, an extraordinary appeal, which is intended to let for the annulment of grossly unjust or illegal decisions. The task does not supply for an instrument to replace this complaint, but involves strengthening the cassation complaint.
Sentences upheld. But...
The ministerial draft provides, in principle, for the maintenance of judgments issued by alleged neo-judges. It does, however, let specified decisions to be moved by parties who have previously consistently challenged the legality of the ruling.
Importantly, this will not be the case for judgments given by the alleged neo-judges of the ultimate Court and the ultimate Administrative Court and disciplinary decisions concerning administrative courts. The organization will not gotta show that it had already applied for an impartiality test or for the exclusion of a justice during the judicial proceedings to challenge the judgments given by those judges.
Minister Żurek stressed that he wanted the bill to be discussed by the government as shortly as possible. He besides pointed out that time plays a crucial function here, as in November the prolonged moratorium, which Poland received from the European Court of Human Rights for the implementation of guidelines resulting from the pilot judgement in the Wałęsa case against Poland, passes.
A compromise proposal?
He besides expressed his hope that president Karol Nawrocki would take a close look at the provisions of this bill.
– We want this bill to show a compromise and we want it to be signed, not thrown in the trash by the President. (...) If the president considers that we should talk about this and get a clear signal from the Prime Minister, we are able to sit down and show the president all the good solutions in this project," Żurek added.
It's nothing new.
In contrast, Przemysław Rosati, president of the ultimate Bar Council, is skeptical about the anticipation of agreement with the head of state.
– I believe that this solution will not be accepted by president Karol Nawrocki, and it is up to him to decide whether the bill will come into force. I don't see a chance. I fishy that in this case the law will lose to politics, and the task we are talking about will not be signed by the President," says the “Rzeczpospolita” head of the NRA.
As he adds, he does not see any fresh quality in the project.
- Nothing new. The substance included in this task has been discussed respective times over the past months – points out Mr Rosati.
