On Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk established an inter-ministerial team for the restoration of the rule of law and constitutional order, the head of the Ministry of Justice, Attorney General Adam Bodnar, said at the first press conference, where he presented the new management of the state. ministry.
Bodnar announced at a press conference that the procedures regarding the appointment of deputy ministers, deputy ministers and state secretaries in his ministry had been completed. He said Prime Minister Donald Tusk signed the nomination laws before leaving for Brussels. Arkadiusz Myrcha, Krzysztof Śmiszek, Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz and Maria Ejchart-Dubois became deputy justice ministers.
The head of the Justice Ministry also said he had sent an application to Prime Minister Donald Tusk to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which was one of his first decisions after taking office. He stressed that this is very important from the point of view of the security of EU funds.
Bodnar also announced that he sent a letter on Wednesday to the coordinators of human rights judges in Polish courts, reminding them of the standards arising from the case law of the ECtHR and the CJEU regarding the independence of the judicial power.
He added that Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Wednesday established an inter-ministerial team for the restoration of the rule of law and constitutional order. The order on this matter was published in Monitor Polski.
The team’s tasks include: identification of areas and analysis of issues related to the restoration of the rule of law and constitutional order; defining proposals for actions, including legislative actions, related to the restoration of the rule of law and constitutional order, monitoring the actions mentioned in point 2, and analyzing the proposed solutions.
The team’s next tasks include providing opinions on draft government documents on issues related to the restoration of the rule of law and constitutional order, and carrying out other tasks assigned by the Prime Minister on issues related with the restoration of the rule of law and constitutional order.
The team consists of: the chairman – the Minister of Justice or the State Secretary or State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice designated by him, as well as representatives of various other ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The role of this team will be to coordinate various activities in the functioning of the government. These activities are important because we need to have a common influence and approach, especially on EU recommendations, the case law of the Court in Luxembourg and the Court in Strasbourg, and present our positions appropriately.
– said Minister Bodnar.
He emphasized that some of the positions recently expressed would have to be modified due to the fact that, in his view, many of the reservations expressed by these tribunals were correct.
Secretaries and Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs
After Bodnar, new state secretaries and deputy ministers from the Ministry of Justice took the floor.
I come to the ministry with two missions. One concerns legislative and normative decisions submitted to parliament by the Ministry of Justice. We know how big of a problem their quality was. We know how instrumentally the law was used to implement current policies
– said Deputy Minister Myrcha.
We need to rebuild this legislative process. But above all, normative decisions and draft laws must certainly be of better quality than what we have been dealing with in the past eight years.
– he explained.
He added that his second mission at the ministry involves the reconstruction of the “heavily damaged Polish Prosecutor’s Office, highly politicized by Attorney General Zbigniew Ziobro.” He stressed that the Polish Public Prosecution Service must regain public trust.
It must operate efficiently and transparently and fulfill this mission of the Public Prosecution Service
– he said.
Deputy Minister Śmiszek said that one of the main missions of the Ministry of Justice is to restore Poland’s relations with the European Union.
We are now on the edge of Europe only because someone once decided to violate our Constitution, violate the rule of law and abandon the European family.
– he said.
One of the most important tasks entrusted to me is to maintain very good relations with the EU institutions, to follow everything that happens in the international arena and to strengthen the protection of civil rights and freedoms.
– said Śmiszek.
Maria Ejchart announced that she will work as a deputy minister at the Ministry of Justice on matters related to human rights.
I was assigned a department that deals with the implementation of sanctions. My area of special interest is places where deprivations of liberty take place. One of my first decisions will certainly be to restore the right of people deprived of their liberty to use the telephone more than once a week.
– she declared.
It will be an extraordinary honor for me to work on the rule of law and rebuild its foundations within the Ministry of Justice
– said Deputy Minister Zuzanna Rudzińska-Bluszcz.
Unfortunately, concepts such as justice, law and the rule of law have become political in recent years, and these are concepts that, instead of building a wall,
– she said.
At MS, my interests include: the situation of the most vulnerable people in the justice system (including children) and in this regard I intend to work closely with the new Ombudsman for Children, Monika Horna-Cieślak
– summarized Rudzińska-Bluszcz.
When asked which of the deputy ministers would deal with legal issues, Bodnar said that this deputy minister had not yet been appointed and that he would deal with this area personally until his appointment.
Bodnar was sworn in as justice minister – and attorney general – on Wednesday as a member of Donald Tusk’s new cabinet. He replaced the leader of sovereign Poland, Zbigniew Ziobro, who had held the position of head of the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General since 2015.
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Source: wPolityce