Polish judges should be allowed to stay in place until the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decides whether measures that will effectively allow the government to choose the court’s staff breach EU law. This is according to the country’s Supreme Court.
The court’s spokesman Justice Michal Laskowski on August 2 said Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and the National Judiciary Council (KRS), which decides judicial appointments, should hold off from making any decisions about the court’s members pending the ECJ’s verdict.
“The decision is being sent to the (presidential) Chancellery and the KRS and they both should stop actions… until the ruling is made,” he told a news conference.
As reported by the Reuters news agency, the justice ministry is expected to comment on the Supreme Court’s statement later in the day.
The ECJ is assessing judicial reforms undertaken by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party since it came to power in Poland in 2015.
Earlier this month, 22 Supreme Court judges – nearly one-third of the total – were forced into early retirement, but some have refused to go. They include the court’s chief judge Malgorzata Gersdorf, who says her constitutional term does not expire until 2020.
