Serious infringements of Union law
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Thursday that the Polish Constitutional Court had infringed EU law by failing to respect the earlier judgments of the TEU. The CJEU besides stated that the TK did not meet the requirements of an independent and impartial court established by the Act due to irregularities in the appointment of 3 of its members and the President.
The judgement full took into account the European Commission’s action, brought after the Constitutional Tribunal had given 2 rulings challenging the precedence of EU law over national law. The EU Court of Justice stated Poland's shortcomings towards EU law and stressed that it could not trust on its own constitutional identity to avoid compliance with the common values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on EU, specified as the regulation of law, effective judicial protection and the independency of the judiciary.
As TEU explained:
These values form the basis of the identity of the Union itself, to which Poland voluntarily joined. After accession (Poland to the EU – ed.), these values are reflected in legally binding commitments that associate States cannot deviate from.
Two Key Judgments
The Polish Constitutional Court issued judgments challenging the primacy of EU law on 14 July and 7 October 2021. These rulings were a consequence of changes in the Polish judiciary introduced by the then Law and Justice Government, which had previously been contested by the European Commission and subsequently by the TEU.
The judgement of 14 July 2021 afraid the application of provisional measures by the EU Court of Justice to the Polish judiciary. The Constitutional Tribunal found that the provision of the EU Treaty on the basis of which the EU Court of Justice ordered the suspension of the proceedings of the Disciplinary Chamber of the ultimate Court pending the final judgement in Luxembourg. As a result, Poland was later charged with regular penalties for not complying with this order.
The judgement of 7 October 2021 answered the question of then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki concerning the conflict between EU law and the Polish constitution. The Constitutional Tribunal stated that the European rules authorising national courts to disregard the Constitution or to apply the repealed standards are incompatible with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. The Court stressed that EU treaties, as acts of global law, have precedence over national laws, but cannot overtake the Constitution.
Raw Spielmann Assessment
The Advocate General of the TEU, Dean Spielmann, described both judgments of the TK as a ‘unprecedented rebellion’ that violates the priority, autonomy and effectiveness of Union law. According to him, the judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal affected the fundamental principles of the Union's legal order and the authority of the judgments of the CJEU and cannot be justified by national law, including the Constitution.
Spielmann besides stated that the Constitutional Tribunal no longer guarantees independency and impartiality under the Act, pointing to irregularities in the appointment of the Constitutional Tribunal judges in December 2015 and in the election of its president in December 2016. It is about the election of Henry Cioch, Lech Morawski and Mariusz Muszyński as judges of the Constitutional Tribunal by the Sejm in December 2015, after prior designation of the invalid election of judges made by the erstwhile word of office of the Sejm. These candidates were sworn in by president Andrzej Duda, and the president of TK was Julia Przyłębska.
