Poland’s justice minister and Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro has slammed a European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgment over the suspension of a Polish judge for alleged breaches of confidentiality in court proceedings.
Ziobro said the move was “politically motivated” and that it should be “ignored”.
The ECJ on July 13 ruled a decision taken by the Polish Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Chamber, “whose independence and impartiality were not guaranteed”, violated European Union law, as did the initiation of criminal proceedings against Justice Igor Tuleya and the suspension of his judicial duties,
Tuleya, a vocal critic of the current Polish Government and its policies regarding the judiciary, was charged with revealing details of court proceedings.
The ECJ has also ruled that Tuleya must be allowed to return to his official duties. It also asserted the primacy of European law.
Poland’s constitutional court has recently ruled that EU law cannot override the Polish Constitution and that European courts have no right to breach EU treaties in attempting to determine the shape of Poland’s judicial system.
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The ECJ ruling comes in the aftermath of one from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg that said Poland violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In addition, the ECJ ruled that there had been no legal basis for the measures taken against Tuleya.
The ECHR also criticised Poland’s system for disciplining judges, stating that the country’s Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Chamber, now defunct, “was not an independent and impartial tribunal established by law”.
Tuleya has, in fact, already been allowed to return to work after last year’s closure of the Disciplinary Chamber. It has been replaced by the Chamber of Professional Accountability.
The new body ruled that the case against Tuleya was unproven. However, as the ECHR noted in another ruling, his immunity has not been reinstated and therefore he continues to face criminal proceedings.
Commenting on the ECJ judgment, Ziobro said no external body could order any Polish officials to breach the Polish Constitution or circumvent the constitutional court’s ruling that it takes precedence over EU law.
He called the ECJ’s finding in favour of the judge a “political declaration” that “should be ignored”.
