The current scale of legal turmoil exceeds all bounds and is affecting the lives of an ever-growing number of Poles. To meet this challenge, we have brought together top experts—law professors, experienced judges, prosecutors, and attorneys. Under the supervision of Łukasz Bernaciński, Ph.D., of the Ordo Iuris management board and Prof. Anna Łabno from our Academic Council, they prepared a report titled “Finding a Way Out of Poland’s Rule-of-Law Crisis. Possible Courses of Action and Reform.”
Two years of chaos and lawlessness in the justice system
The current scale of legal turmoil exceeds all bounds and is affecting the lives of an ever-growing number of Poles.
For over two years, the ruling EU-backed leftist-liberal coalition has refused to recognize the Constitutional Tribunal’s rulings, it has “circumvented” presidential vetoes through regulations, and issued “guidelines” that are unlawful and not provided for in the Constitution regarding the prosecution of “hate speech” and the broad permissibility of illegal abortion.
The dictatorial concentration of power in the hands of a single man and his party has led to a crisis of the rule of law in Poland with a total breakdown of the justice system, and it s destroying citizens’ trust in state institutions.
Poles are paying the price for this unprecedented destruction of the rule of law by those in power.
Any Polish person who is fighting in court over excessive bills, seeking to collect on an unpaid invoice, going through probate, or disputing with a dishonest insurer can experience the effects of the chaos firsthand. In Poland, any court judgment can now turn out to be a worthless “scrap of paper” just because the government denies more than three thousand judges sworn in by the President of the Republic of Poland the right to adjudicate.
What should parents whom Ordo Iuris lawyers are helping to get their children back say? Should they have to accept an additional year of proceedings, devoted solely to determining whether the judge is even a judge, because of political disputes?
As a result of the government’s reckless encouragement to challenge judges, things are already happening that cry out to high heaven.
In October, a Ukrainian who murdered his wife and two daughters, did not receive a guilty verdict, because the Poznań Court of Appeal held that at first instance the defendant had been convicted by a “neo-judge,” i.e., a judge appointed after the 2017 reform of the National Council of the Judiciary. In the same court and for the same reason the guilty verdict was overturned against a repeat offender who had raped a 14-year-old girl. Meanwhile, Poland’s Supreme Court, while tracking down “neo-judges”, overturned the convictions of gangsters trafficking in drugs.
In each of these cases, undue delay is leading to the time-barring of criminal liability, which will permanently prevent the administration of justice.
Ordo Iuris shows the way out of the rule-of-law crisis
We need an exit plan for this crisis. Otherwise, the government will drive thousands of people to despair and the entire nation to lose trust in the state and its institutions. Then the supremacy of centralized European Union law will be presented as the only hope for order, stability, and social peace.
To meet this challenge, we have assembled the best experts, law professors, experienced judges, prosecutors, attorneys. Under the supervision of Łukasz Bernaciński, Ph.D., of the Ordo Iuris management board and Prof. Anna Łabno from our Academic Council, they prepared a report titled ““Finding a Way Out of Poland’s Rule-of-Law Crisis.Possible Courses of Action and Reform.”
President Karol Nawrocki has already received the document. I also personally handed the report to Professor Przemysław Czarnek, the opposition’s candidate for Prime Minister, and Deputy Speaker of the Sejm Krzysztof Bosak. We have many meetings ahead with experts, politicians, and citizens, during which we will explain the path out of the crisis.
The government is seeking to take over the Constitutional Tribunal and the National Council of the Judiciary.
The report was released at the last minute. The government and the Sejm, violating their own rules and ignoring the President’s objections, are seeking to take over the Constitutional Tribunal. Once they have packed it with their own appointees, they will immediately consider the Tribunal’s rulings to be valid, lawful, and independent.
The path to outlawing opposition parties, and even to stripping the president of his prerogatives or office, will be wide open.
It is worth noting that the Sejm has just elected to the Constitutional Tribunal politically engaged judges, who participated in the past in overtly political rallies and events. None of those selected by the ruling coalition is a constitutional law scholar. Among them are: the former president of the Iustitia judges’ association as well as a board member of the Themis judges’ association—two associations that, for years, have been outspoken about their support for the current ruling coalition and their opposition to the previous conservative government—, a former deputy to Donald Tusk’s previous Justice Minister Adam Bodnar, and even a scholar whose application for a professorship received a negative evaluation… among other things because of citing Belarusian regulations as a model for legislation. In addition, some of those selected are members of a ministerial commission under current Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek.
An attempt to take over the Constitutional Tribunal is one step, and the other is the appointment of judges to the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS). Although citizens have submitted over 500,000 signatures in support of citizen-backed judicial candidacies for the KRS, the ruling coalition still intends to hand the KRS over to the control of judges backed by a small clique within the judiciary through so-called primaries, which not only lack a legal basis but were also boycotted by most judges.
We are revealing the extent of the lawlessness of Donald Tusk’s government
A report isn’t everything. We are currently working on a draft bill that will implement the proposals outlined in the report. We will present it in April.
We also continuously monitor all violations of the law committed by those in power and report on them on the bilingual portal Obserwator Praworządności / Rule-of-Law Observer, which has become popular with Polish and international journalists. We have already published a total of more than 150 articles on it, documenting examples of government lawlessness!
In addition, we published two reports detailing the most significant violations of the law by Donald Tusk’s government, which we provided to journalists, lawyers, and politicians from Europe and the US. Our publications have broken the government’s and the left-wing media’s monopoly on reporting what is happening in Poland, exposing the extent of the Polish left-wing coalition’s lawlessness.
We analyzed the government’s draft bill on “restoring the rule of law,” which provides for removing judges from office, contrary to the guarantees provided by Article 180 of the Constitution. During the public hearing in the Sejm, we pointed out that the government’s proposal has no constitutional basis. Our legal opinion on this matter was submitted to the Sejm Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
Ordo Iuris Intervention in the National Council of the Judiciary
At the request of the Chair of the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), our lawyers intervened when prosecutors and police officers sent by the government unlawfully forced entry into the offices of the Disciplinary Officer for Common Court Judges at the KRS headquarters, opened safes, and seized documents. The activities conducted by the prosecutor’s office lasted nearly 12 hours and did not end until after midnight. Throughout this time, Ordo Iuris lawyers were present on site and, on behalf of the KRS and the Director of the Secretariat of the Disciplinary Officer for Ordinary Court Judges, lodged a complaint in this matter, listing nearly 40 violations of the law!
Interestingly, the break-in at the KRS building was timed for when the Chairwoman of the KRS was in the Sejm, and the President of the Republic of Poland was outside Poland—at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
For several months now, we have been participating in a series of meetings organized at the Constitutional Tribunal under the title “Good Law for Poland”, which focused on institutional reform and the future of Polish constitutionalism.
At the invitation of the President of the Constitutional Tribunal, we took part in the ceremonial session of the General Assembly of Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, which deliberated on the state of the rule of law in Poland.
We do all this for a single purpose—to end, as quickly as possible, the era of government lawlessness and ongoing anarchy. We must help Poland overcome the crisis and restore peace, order, and stability. For only under such conditions can we effectively protect life, the rights of the family, marriage, and our freedom and sovereignty.
Atty. Jerzy Kwaśniewski, President of the Ordo Iuris Institute.
Source of cover photo: Ordo Iuris
