10/08/2021
Justice minister says Supreme Court chief violating law by partially freezing disciplinary chamber
As an internal conflict over Poland’s disputed disciplinary chamber for judges intensifies, the justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, has accused the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Małgorzata Manowska, of violating the law and the constitution by partially suspending the body.
Last week, Manowska ordered the chamber not to accept new cases. That marked an apparent reversal from her previous stance, when she had indicated she saw no reason to comply with an order from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to suspend the chamber.
Likewise, although a government spokesman had initially indicated Warsaw was “not planning” to implement recent CJEU rulings, there has subsequently been a change of tone, with the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, and ruling party chairman, Jarosław Kaczyński, both hinting at compromise with Brussels.
Ziobro, however, who is leader of a hard-right, Eurosceptic junior partner in the ruling coalition, has remained opposed to any form of compliance with the CJEU rulings. “EU aggression should be met with a tough response,” he said last week, warning that Poland should not remain in the bloc “at any price”.
The justice minister has also now hit out at Manowska, who previously served him as a deputy minister and was appointed to lead the Supreme Court last year in controversial circumstances.
In a statement posted on his ministry’s website, Ziobro accused the chief justice of “taking actions contrary to Polish law, both statutory and constitutional”, by “blocking the work of the disciplinary chamber”.
