2024-10-24 21:22 update: 2024-10-25, 14:24
Photo PAP/Rafał Guz
A majority of Poland's Supreme Court (SN) judges have refused to participate in an assembly, called for by the court's president, along with the so-called neo-judges, who, they say, were illegitimately appointed to SN.
On Thursday, by order of September 12, the First President of the Supreme Court, Malgorzata Manowska, convened the General Assembly of Judges of the Supreme Court, the first in four years.
The General Assembly is a special body of judicial self-government which allows SN judges to express their opinions on important matters of the functioning of that court. Its Thursday gathering was to consider information on the SN activities in 2019-2023 and on the activities of the now-defunct Disciplinary Chamber of the SN in 2019-2020.
But, in a statement signed by 32 Supreme Court judges, they said they would not appear at any assemblies to which judges elected to the SN after 2017 by the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), a body rendered illegitimate by the reforms of the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government, are admitted.
"Until the constitutional order is restored in the Supreme Court, we will not participate in the convened general assemblies of judges due to the admission of unauthorised persons, as defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, to adjudicate in the Supreme Court and to participate in these assemblies, due to manipulation of the course of the previous assemblies of judges and making nominations for the positions of presidents of this court in breach of the constitutional provisions," read the statement posted on social media on Thursday.
"We will not participate in fiction aimed at legitimising lawlessness," the judges wrote.
The last General Assembly was to be held in 2020, and the SN judges wanted to debate the activities and judicial decisions of the Disciplinary Chamber taken in conflict with the Court of Justice of the European Union's (CJEU) interim measure prohibiting such actions. They also wanted to assess the breaches that took place during the selection of candidates for the office of the First President of the Supreme Court. However, Manowska named the new head of SN under PiS, did not allow this debate by granting leave to the judges appointed by the illegitimate KRS and therefore, the assembly could not be held without the majority required to adopt resolutions.
One of the Supreme Court judges who signed the Thursday statement, Wlodzimierz Wrobel, said that "for over four years, she has not resumed the meeting of those judges who wanted to assess the manipulations in selecting candidates for the position of First President of the Supreme Court in 2020". (PAP)
mr/mf
