What about the Presidential Draft Amendment to the SN Act? The Commission wants to reintroduce the impartiality test. The preamble has also been removed

The Sejm Judiciary Commission recommended that the provision on the “test of impartiality and independence of a judge” with regard to already final judgments be reinstated in the draft amendments to the Supreme Court law. She also chose to delete the preamble.

MP Ast: We are on our way to bring the presidential project back to its original form

-Work on the amendment of the Supreme Court Act. Ast: We want to reinstate the judge’s impartiality test and remove the preamble. What does SP say?

The Commission has recommended 16 of the 53 amendments

During a meeting that lasted more than an hour on Wednesday evening, the committee recommended 16 of 53 amendments tabled at second reading to the draft amendments to the Supreme Court provisions.

Positive advice was given to 15 PiS amendments and one to Solidarna Polska. The amendments of the opposition, the rest of Solidarna Polska and one PiS amendment were negative. The SP has withdrawn some of the amendments.

The project initiated by President Andrzej Duda mainly concerns the liquidation of the Supreme Court Disciplinary Chamber. Judges now serving in the Disciplinary Chamber would have the choice of moving to another chamber or retiring. A chamber of professional responsibility would be established in the Supreme Court. Of all the judges of the Supreme Court, with the exception of e.g. the presidents of the chambers of the Supreme Court, 33 people are randomly selected, among whom the president must choose 11 judges for the composition of the Chamber of Professional Indemnity for a term of office of five years .

The “test of a judge’s impartiality and independence” envisaged in the draft, in turn, is to give every citizen – as the president noted – the right to have his case examined by an impartial and independent court. A party or a litigant could submit a request to investigate the requirements of independence and impartiality.

Last week, the parliamentary committee on justice recommended this project, while adopting amendments to it, including: Solidarity Poland. Pursuant to these provisions, one of the articles relating to the possibility of conducting a “test of impartiality and independence” of judges with regard to judgments already rendered has been removed from the draft. After the amendment of Solidarna Polska, a preamble has also been added to the design.

Presidential Draft Second Reading

On Wednesday – in second reading – PiS tabled amendments, incl. essentially reverting to the previous form of the draft. As stated in this provision, it can be stated within six months after the date of entry into force of the Act that the final judgment has been given in violation of the standard of independence and impartiality. Such applications would be examined by panels made up of five judges from the respective courts.

With regard to the judge’s “test of impartiality and independence”, in final judgments, this amendment halved the maximum amount of the treasury that could be paid to the defendant as compensation after such a request was taken into account – from PLN 20 to 10,000. zloty.

The reintroduction of the previously deleted provision containing the procedure for such eventual verification of judgments already rendered sparked the most extensive discussion at Wednesday’s committee meeting.

The Ministry’s position was generally negative, because of the difficult to estimate effects on the impact of cases, we maintain this negative position, but we understand with understanding that the Chairman is very committed to this solution, as one of the leaders in this project and in the spirit of far-reaching compromises, and due to all the circumstances we are currently in, ie the war at the gates of Poland, we need a smooth transition to the use of EU funds

– said Deputy Justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta (SP).

At the same time, he announced that if “a new catalog of business comes along, there must be new jobs to deal with these issues”.

These risks resulting from the possible increased number of lawsuits will be mitigated by the government through an increase in the number of lawsuits, including when it comes to administrative functions.

Kaleta announced.

The representatives of the National Council for the Judiciary opposed the reintroduction of this provision.

It doesn’t work for the citizens. We request that you do not take this change into account

– said the president of the National Court Register, Dagmara Pawełczyk-Woicka.

Adopting such a change could even paralyze the judiciary. There will be a lot of things like this that parties will take advantage of as much as possible, whether they feel hurt or not. (…) I even expect a collapse

– said Judge Stanisław Zdun of the National Court Register.

I would only like to make such a brief statement for the minutes that I have my opinion, but I do not agree on this point

– said MP Piotr Sak from Solidarna Polska.

Vote on the adoption of regulations already at the current session of the Sejm

In the end, in legally valid decisions, 16 deputies of the committee voted in favor of returning the articles on the “test”, 13 were against and two abstained.

The amendment to delete the preamble was also positively recommended – 26 votes in favour, four against.

I would like to express my great thanks for the work of the committee and the handling of the project

– the representative of the chairman, Małgorzata Paprocka, thanked at the end of the meeting.

The Sejm will vote on the adoption of these provisions on the Supreme Court during the current session of the Chamber.

aja / PAP