By Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk
WARSAW (Reuters) – A top Polish court was to discuss on Wednesday whether a continent-wide human rights court had the power to question local judges’ legitimacy in a case that could deepen the nationalist government’s standoff with Europe.
In power since 2015, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party has clashed with European institutions over issues from judicial reforms and refugees to climate change and LGBT rights.
Critics accuse the PiS of trampling on European democratic values and politicising courts via appointments and disciplinary processes to entrench power. But the government says changes are needed to improve efficiency and clean up the judiciary of remnants of the 1945-89 communist era.
On Wednesday, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal was to discuss the authority of the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to influence its national court system.
The ECHR has several dozen cases pending over appointments of Polish judges. In the past, it has ruled against a “disciplinary chamber” for judges and said dismissals without appeals were an infringement of rights.
The Constitutional Tribunal ruled last year that some EU law was incompatible with Poland’s charter, raising fears Warsaw might even leave the 27-member bloc eventually.
Poland has ignored multiple past rulings by European bodies over its judiciary and other matters, saying they were illegal and politically-motivated interference.
Marcin Szwed, from the Helsinki Foundation rights group in Warsaw, said Wednesday’s case, brought by the PiS-appointed prosecutor general, could be used to threaten judges.
“The goal could be to discourage Polish courts from using the European convention on human rights to question the legality of judges,” he said, referring to clashes between newly-appointed judges and longer-serving peers.
One of the five judges who will hear Wednesday’s case is considered illegally appointed by the ECHR.
Next month, the Constitutional Tribunal is also due to debate whether the EU’s Court of Justice may impose interim measures or financial penalties on Poland.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
