WARSAW (Reuters) – A Polish law from 2019 on disciplining judges is against European Union treaties, the advocate general of the bloc’s top court said on Thursday in a case in which the court earlier imposed a 1 million euro ($1.06 million) a day fine on Poland.
Poland is embroiled in a long-running row with Brussels over the rule of law. The opinion comes as Poland’s ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) are trying to pass fresh amendments to laws on the judiciary that they hope will unblock 35.4 billion euros in COVID-19 recovery funds.
“The infringement of EU law consists of depriving national courts of the possibility to ensure that EU law is applied by an independent and impartial tribunal in all cases,” Advocate General Anthony Michael Collins said in a statement.
In October 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union imposed as an interim measure a 1 million euro a day fine over Warsaw’s failure to implement its order to dismantle the Disciplinary Chamber for judges that Brussels said was politicised.
As part of the Court’s procedures, Collins would be expected to publish an opinion on the case. The court is not obliged to follow that opinion in its final ruling – which has yet to be handed down – but usually does.
Warsaw replaced the Disciplinary Chamber with a new body and asked for the fine to be suspended but critics say the issue of judicial independence being undermined has not been resolved.
This week the government proposed to amend the law again and transfer judges’ disciplinary cases to the Supreme Administrative Court, a bill it says would fulfil the key milestones indicated by the European Commission as conditions for receiving COVID-19 recovery funds.
($1 = 0.9424 euros)
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Alan Charlish; Editing by Jon Boyle)
