When the European Union’s highest court declared on Monday that Warsaw had disobeyed EU rules on judicial independence for which it has already lost more than half a billion euros in fines, the EU escalated its battle for rule of law with member state Poland. The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, argued that the Polish Supreme Court lacked the required independence and impartiality, and the European Court of Justice determined on Monday that Poland’s 2019 justice reform violated EU law.
According to a court statement, “by its decision today, the Court upholds the Commission’s action.” “The value of the rule of law is an integral part of the very identity of the European Union as a common legal order and is given concrete expression in the European Union,” it continued. principles that contain obligations that are binding on the Member States. It claimed that Poland had broken these commitments. The court stated, amid a barrage of denunciation and criticism, “the measures thus adopted by the Polish legislature are incompatible with the guarantees of access to an independent and impartial tribunal.”
According to Polish legislation, judges must disclose their affiliation with any associations or parties, and that information may be made public. In its decision, the ECJ stated that the rules “liable to expose judges to risks of undue stigmatization.” The Warsaw right-wing government has a number of disagreements with the EU institutions, including one over the Supreme Court’s operation. It asserts that the bloc is eroding Poland’s unalienable rights to autonomous judgments. The populist Law and Justice party has put Poland on a slippery slope away from the EU’s fundamentals of the rule of law, according to the EU institutions.This argument focuses on the justices of the Polish Supreme Court’s impartiality when examining EU law.
Only last week, Poland’s intentions for a new law that may prevent political opponents from holding public office without full legal consequences were denounced by the top judicial officials of the United States and the EU. If it became evident that such a bill would damage democratic values, the EU promised to take action. The EU itself is not the only source of criticism. On Sunday, citizens from all over the world traveled to Poland’s capital to participate in a march against the administration.
country to express their rage against officials who they claim have undermined democratic standards and stoked concerns that the country is heading in the same direction as Turkey and Hungary toward dictatorship. The march, which was reportedly attended by 500,000 people, was undoubtedly the biggest in recent memory, according to organizers. Polish authorities have already paid fines totaling nearly 550 million euros since October 2021, when the system of 1 million euros in daily fines began, in the dispute at the core of Monday’s decision by the Luxembourg court. In April, the daily fines were cut in half.
The delivery of almost 35 billion euros in pandemic recovery funds is also being withheld by EU authorities because to the ongoing legal dispute between Brussels and Warsaw. Poland, following the demise of the Soviet Union joined the EU alongside numerous other countries from Central and Eastern Europe. Since they overcame despotism, it has been expected of them to prosper and develop into the prototypes of Western liberal democracies. According to critics, Poland and Hungary are once again moving closer to one-party authoritarianism.
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