A court of appeal in Poland has overturned a life sentence for an alleged serial killer originally convicted of having murdered three women in order to take control of their assets.
According to the court, that decision to overturn was because the judge presiding over the original case was appointed during the lifetime of the former Conservative (PiS) government.
The official was therefore not recognised by the present ruling administration under Prime Minister Donald Tusk as a legitimately nominated judge.
On January 24, the city of Szczecin’s appeal court overturned a sentence handed out to a 47-year-old named by the media “Bloody Tulip” for the alleged murder of three women. All had been said to have been romantically involved with him before he allegedly killed them to take over their property.
The appeals court’s decision meant the accused would have to face trial once again.
According to the justice minister Adam Bodnar “the man will remain in detention until that trial”. He said the situation had been caused by “the mistaken policies of the previous government that have put into question thousands of judicial decisions”.
The appeals court, according to justice Andrzej Olszewski “accepted the defence’s argument that Anna Rutecka-Janowska, the judge presiding over the original murder case, is not a judge”.
The court said that was because she, like hundreds of other judges, had been appointed on recommendation of the National Judicial Council (KRS). The validity of that body has been questioned by both the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the centre-left government led by Tusk.
According to Olszewski, Rutecka-Janowska was not a judge recognised by European law because “she does not meet the test of independence and impartiality” as a result of the way she was nominated.
The decision taken by the appeals court has demonstrated to observers the problems being encountered within Poland’s judicial system. They have have been exacerbated by the government’s decision to call the more than 3,000 judges appointed during the lifetime of the previous PiS government “neo-judges”, a term that has no effective legal meaning.
These so-called neo-judges have presided over thousands of cases and thus the verdicts reached in those could now be challenged.
The Tusk government has of late also decided to exclude neo-judges from sitting on the bench in anything other than minor cases. That effectively meant only judges the current government approved of could hear sensitive cases involving PiS officials who were being indicted.
The ECJ has challenged the legitimacy of the KRS because it was elected by parliament and therefore the European court deemed it a body over which the executive and legislative power had effective control.
It did not, though, recommend that all verdicts handed down by judges appointed on the KRS’ recommendation be overturned.
The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission has also warned the Polish Government against wholesale cancellation of judgments made by judges appointed under the PiS government, stating it feared the potential “legal chaos” that could ensue.
The internal disputes over the rule of law have not prevented Tusk from getting the full backing of the European Commission that had blocked the previous PiS government’s post-pandemic EU funding. It had done that as a sanction against alleged rule of law violations.
Within days of Tusk – a former president of the European Council – coming to power in December 2023, the commission unblocked all funds for Poland.
Since then no legislation to address the problems the commission and ECJ had highlighted, such as the need to reform the judiciary, has been put in place.
