Judicial Independence: European Standards, ECtHR Criteria and the Reshuffling Plan of the Judiciary Bodies in Poland

Abstract

In Poland, after the Parliamentary election of 2015, the executive propelled a series of interlock reforms of the judicial bodies. In the first place, the way forward was marked by a compound diatribe concerning the Constitutional Tribunal, the essence of the dispute was about the mandate's legitimacy of three sitting judges after the Court's reinterpretation of the K 34/15 ruling that ended up on 2 December by the election of five new judges appointed ex novo by the ruling party. Afterwards, the attention shifted towards the rethinking of the National Council of Judiciary (KRS), asserting, firstly, the unconstitutionality of its statute and, subsequently, planning a new method of appointment for the judicial members. Ultimately, the spotlight turned in the direction of the Supreme Courts judges where the most spectacular sweep was the provision aimed at lowering the retirement age for the sitting judges on a scheme similar to the proposal made by the Hungarian government in 2011 where raised their voices respectively, the Hungarian Constitutional Court, the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, where the judicial independence standard played a minor role on their reasoning.