The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decided on Wednesday 27 October to impose a daily fine of €1 million on Poland for failing to cease the activities of the disciplinary chamber of the Polish Supreme Court, contrary to a ruling given in mid-July (see EUROPE 12762/23).
“As it has not suspended the application of the provisions of national legislation relating, in particular, to the areas of jurisdiction of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court, Poland is ordered to pay the European Commission a daily penalty payment in an amount of €1,000,000”, the Court announced in a statement.
The European Commission decided in September to refer the matter to the CJEU to determine the amount of the fine in view of the seriousness of the facts and the duration of a conflict lasting more than four years (see EUROPE 12785/1). The Commission had issued an ultimatum to Warsaw on 20 July regarding this controversial disciplinary chamber (see EUROPE 12766/3) and considered, at the beginning of September, that it had not received satisfactory answers from the Polish authorities.
The disciplinary chamber, which the Court of Justice found to be incompatible with European law and the principle of the independence of the judiciary, had also continued to sanction judges whose immunity had been lifted.
Although the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has since announced, on 19 October in Strasbourg, that this body would be rethought, the disciplinary chamber has not disappeared and its functioning has not been reviewed. And this is precisely what the EU Court of Justice is accusing it of doing.
“Compliance with the interim measures ordered on 14 July 2021 is necessary in order to avoid serious and irreparable damage to the EU’s legal order and to the values on which that Union is founded, in particular that of the rule of law”, the Court of Justice explained on Wednesday.
By a judgment of November 2019, the Court of Justice of the EU had already considered that the disciplinary chamber could not constitute an independent and impartial tribunal (see EUROPE 12372/28).
In particular, it held that the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court, given the conditions of its creation, the scope of its powers, its composition and the involvement of the National Council of the Judiciary in its constitution, could not be “regarded as a court within the meaning of both EU law and Polish law”.
After the entry into force of a new law confirming and expanding the powers of this disciplinary chamber at the beginning of 2020, the Commission brought an action for failure to fulfil obligations before the Court of Justice at the end of March (see EUROPE 12690/4). The Commission had therefore asked Warsaw to suspend this chamber on 14 July, while the final judgment was handed down.
Warsaw will therefore have to pay this fine as soon as it receives the decision and will be obliged to do so as long as the disciplinary chamber is functioning.
The Polish government had already announced this summer that it would modify this chamber and had introduced some changes to its functioning, which were however considered insufficient by the Commission and the Court of Justice.
“The government has publicly stated the need to introduce changes in this area that would ensure its effective functioning. The path of punishments and blackmail towards our country is not the right one”, reacted the government spokesman Piotr Muller via Twitter. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)