Polish judiciary is becoming increasingly degraded. The courts have become a place where justice is not applied and, above all, individual and political disputes are settled. The current dispute over the Constitutional Court is simply a clear example of this.
I've never treated this institution as a court. Since the beginning of its existence, it has been another political body, which, over time, even seemingly ceased to match an independent court. The Constitutional Court became part of organization games in blocking or pushing legal acts convenient for power or opposition. His decisions became dependent on which organization how many of his judges managed to place in the Court.
If you look more closely at what is happening in the TK and with the TK, you can clearly see that many years ago it was taken distant from its majesty and dignity. In a way which is not noticeable to the public, this happened, among another things, erstwhile the rule of subjecting the Polish law to European Union law was adopted. Until then, even nominally the Constitutional Court was the most crucial court in Poland, due to the fact that it decided on the compatibility of all legal acts with the most crucial legal act in the country, the Constitution. Since EU government was considered to be more crucial than the decision of the Polish Constitution, this results not only in a simplification in the rank of the Constitutional Tribunal, but above all in the actual political situation, namely the failure of sovereignty by Poland. And it cannot be said that these are inevitable costs of EU membership. In Germany, this decision was not adopted and the German Constitutional Court decides whether EU law is compatible with the German constitution, which is inactive the most crucial court in Germany.
The current fight about the Polish TK is just a critical moment, de facto taking distant the remainder of the gravity of the court, and coming down to a organization fight that with the TK does nothing little than political whip against the opponent. I would like to remind you of an event from my journalistic work in Warsaw in the early 2000s. I was preparing a large text about the political entanglements of the Constitutional Court. I arranged to discuss this problem with Jarosław Kaczyński. The conversation took place at the PiS office on Nowogrodzka Street. Even then – 20 years ago – the leader of the Law and Justice was aware of the mediocre condition of the Polish judiciary and gave me any examples of scandalous behaviour of judges. However, whether the Constitutional Tribunal is simply a court or another political Stircte institution did not want to talk clearly. I gave him an example of 1 of the cases that TK decided at the time. Well, any government government on state finances was challenged to the CCC. The case was decided by the Court, which included prof. Marek Safjan. At the same time, the government side was represented by the Deputy Minister, who was married to justice Safjana. It was a clear conflict of interest to me. The case was beautiful familiar, which doesn't mean it was loud. Even then, specified situations were attempted to sweep under the carpet.
Significantly, Jarosław Kaczyński told me that he did not know her. I didn't believe him. This case showed something else. The Constitutional Court has chosen either to find that the contested law is incompatible with the Constitution – which was considered to be in line with the facts at the time – but thus exposes the state's finances to very large problems, or to consider that the ad hoc state's financial situation is more crucial – so it will take a decisive political criterion alternatively than a legal 1 – and regulation otherwise, that the requirements of the political situation will prevail over the compliance of the law with the Constitution. As far as I remember, political considerations have prevailed.
If you consider all the things I have written above, you should repeat the conclusion that I reached 20 years ago. This conclusion is that the Constitutional Court must be dissolved. Unfortunately, this is no longer a court, the more independent, and yet another political institution subjected to an increasingly violent fight for organization influence.
Andrzej Szlezak
