"It offends reason." Head of the President's Chancellery powerfully about Tusk and Bodnar's proposal

President Margaret Paprock's Chief Chancellery powerfully criticized the assumptions for the bill on judges. The president will not accept it, she said, pointing out that according to Adam Bodnar and Donald Tusk judges should express regret as if they were criminals.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar presented on Friday the assumptions for the bill governing the position of judges appointed on the basis of the KRS government passed in December 2017 (they entered into force in 2018); according to them, part of the promotions of judges are to be revoked (those whose current authority calls alleged neo-judges).

According to KPRP head Małgorzata Paprocka, “this solution cannot only be acceptable to the President, but cannot be accepted by anyone.” “The Minister of Justice comes out with the president of the Council of Ministers and tells that Polish judges who, according to the Constitution, applied for promotions are expected to express their active regret like criminals,” Polsat News said.

In her opinion, the legal environment should "bring to an alarm that would be heard throughout Europe". "These proposals are not only unconstitutional, but they offend reason. What positions are these judges expected to go back to if they don't? abruptly we will make respective 1000 additional positions in the judiciary?" she asked.

The head of the NRP besides pointed out that people who are called neojudges cannot be accused of doing their duties incorrectly. "If there are allegations against circumstantial persons, disciplinary proceedings are for this, and that is what the applicable rules are for. On the another hand, breaking the backs of judges in specified a way that they have individual to apologize for anything, as if they were the last criminals, is simply a scandalous thing," she stressed.

The Tusk and Bodnar conference took place after a gathering in KPRM with legal representatives, including president of the Association of Polish Judges Iustitia, justice Krystian Markiewicz, president of the Association of Prosecutors "Lex Super Omnia" Robert Kmieciak and Vice president of the Association of Judges "Themis" Waldemar Żurek. According to Paprocka, judges appointed after 2018 were not invited to the gathering due to the fact that there is no legal basis for questioning their status. "The Constitution clearly states: it is the legislator who decides how the KRS is shaped," she said.

The Minister of Justice, discussing the assumptions of the task prepared by the ministry together with the Codification Commission of the Judiciary and Public Prosecutor's Office, said, among another things, that the most crucial in it is "the designation that there are 3 groups of judges appointed after 2018. The first group – explained the head of MS – was "persons who did not have much choice". "They graduated from the National Judicial School and the Public Prosecutor's Office, made an assessure and had no choice another National Judicial Council, were evaluated by the National Courts and became judges," he said. He pointed out that for this group, around 1.6 1000 people, “the Act will find that these persons have the position of judges appointed in accordance with the Constitution”.

"However, we have a group of people who decided to advance after 2018... In this case, 2 groups will be specified. 1 is those people who connect the alleged joint venture. They may have been aware, possibly not, that they were actually active in building an undemocratic order in Poland. Not only due to the fact that they accepted the promotion, but due to the fact that they later included various functions in the judiciary: they became presidents of courts, disciplinary spokespersons, faculty chairmen, they sat on the SN," he said.

As he stressed, the aim of the Act will be that "after 3 months after the entry into force of the Act, these persons return to their erstwhile post". "The promotion will be withdrawn," he announced.

In turn, the last group were "those who received this promotion, but only due to the fact that they had an unrestrained will to advance in the structure of the judiciary". "In this case we foresee the introduction of an institution + active regret+. If they make a message and say it was their mistake in life, they voluntarily return to the court in which they had previously ruled, but nothing else happens to them, they can compete in fresh competitions from the next day and apply for fresh rules. In a sense we recognise them as being absolved," he said.

According to the estimates of MS, as Bodnar said, people referred to as connected "joint ventures" can be 500 and from the another group 900. "But those 500 people who have created undemocratic order will besides be subject to disciplinary responsibility. A peculiar body acting as a collegiate disciplinary spokesperson will be created and these persons will be assessed for violations of the principles of judicial ethics," the head of MS besides informed.

Source: PAP

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