According to a ruling by the Polish Constitutional Court, parts of EU law are incompatible with the country’s constitution. “The attempt by the European Court of Justice to interfere in the Polish judicial system violates (…) the rule of primacy of the constitution and the rule that sovereignty is preserved in the process of European integration,” the judges judged. The decision could further fuel the dispute between Warsaw and Brussels over the reform of the Polish judicial system.
In mid-August, the Constitutional Court in Warsaw started deliberations on the question of whether European law can take precedence over Polish constitutional law. Specifically, it is about whether provisions from EU treaties, with which the EU Commission justifies its right to have a say in questions of the rule of law, are compatible with the Polish constitution.
The court has already postponed the decision on this question several times. The meeting was last interrupted on Wednesday last week. The reason given was that new aspects had been put forward; the court needs time to formulate questions about it.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki had asked the Polish Constitutional Court to review a judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) of March 2, 2021. In the ruling, the top EU judges found that EU law can force member states to disregard individual provisions in national law, even if it is constitutional law. According to the ECJ, the procedure for filling the Supreme Court in Poland could violate EU law.
This means that, according to its judgment, the ECJ could force Poland to repeal parts of the controversial judicial reform of the national-conservative PiS government. Because of the reforms, the EU Commission has already opened several infringement proceedings against the government in Warsaw and has filed lawsuits with the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
Among other things, the Brussels authority has doubts about the independence of the Polish constitutional court. The chair is Julia Przyłębska, a close confidante of PiS boss Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Since Przyłębska has been President of the Constitutional Court in Warsaw, the court has only ruled in the interests of those in power in all important proceedings.
Prime Minister Morawiecki is not alone in his opinion within the EU. From the point of view of the Federal Constitutional Court, it is also disputed whether judgments of the European Court of Justice generally have priority over judgments by national courts. In May 2020, the Karlsruhe judges objected to the European Central Bank’s bond purchases worth billions – and thus opposed a CJEU ruling for the first time.
The constitutional judges argued that the central bank had overstretched its mandate for monetary policy with the program launched in 2015. The Federal Government and the Bundestag should work towards ensuring that Europe’s monetary authorities check retrospectively whether the purchases are proportionate. This has now happened, as the court found in a decision at the end of April. In the dispute over the judgment, the EU Commission announced the initiation of infringement proceedings against Germany in June.