Poland, Supreme Court overrules verdicts of judges illegally appointed by nationalist government

Brussels – Poland’s Supreme Court overrules and rewrites the country’s justice system of recent years: all rulings issued by “illegally” appointed judges in the Constitutional court in the wake of the reform sought by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party are invalid. The ruling by the Polish High Court is likely to produce a real earthquake as it reconsiders rulings and decisions, including the one that banned abortion, made impossible with the sole exception of rape, incest or risk to the life of the mother, and matter of dispute with the European Union.

At the center of the ruling by Poland’s Supreme Court, Polish media report​, was the decision made in 2015 by then-President Andrzej Duda, an ally of PiS, who refused to swear in three judges legally appointed by the previous government and instead appointed in their place three judges appointed by the new PiS-controlled parliament. From the beginning, the decision was subject to criticism, remarks and challenges. But only now the High Court certifies the illegitimacy of the act.

A decision that was in some respects heralded, since in 2021 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), a non-EU body, ruled that the presence of “duplicate” judges made the constitutional court a body “not established by law.” Now the Supreme Court’s criminal chamber has come to the same conclusion. In a decision issued last month, it said it “fully agrees with the assessment made by the ECHR” regarding duplicate judges.

The result is a real disruption. “The Supreme Court cannot accept a ruling issued as a result of a violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland,” the judges wrote in the text that contains remarks and censures for decisions made in the past. It means that the law produced in recent years will have to be erased.