Tusk Minister Eyes Constitutional Tribunal Seat as Sasin Slaps Coalition Hypocrisy

PiS MP Jacek Sasin criticizes the ruling coalition’s hypocrisy over Maciej Berek’s nomination to the Constitutional Tribunal, while Prime Minister Donald Tusk defends the conditional departure of his minister.

Sasin Criticizes Berek’s Nomination and Coalition Hypocrisy

– I will vote against because I see no reason to support candidates of the ruling coalition, especially in a situation where this coalition is consistently destroying the Constitutional Tribunal – said PiS MP Jacek Sasin on Radio ZET regarding Maciej Berek’s candidacy for the Tribunal.

– Indeed, this nomination will be symbolic. We have all heard so much about how the Constitutional Tribunal needs to be depoliticized, how very bad it is that politicians end up in this Constitutional Tribunal. How much shouting there was about Stanisław Piotrowicz, how much shouting about Krystyna Pawłowicz [former PiS MPs – ed.]. And now will there be this shouting in the case of Berek by the same people who shouted then? – added Jacek Sasin.

Berek Wants the Tribunal, Sasin Calls it a Joke on Voters

Maciej Berek wants to join the Tribunal. Sasin: Making a joke of voters.

The PiS MP added that he “sees nothing wrong with politicians ending up in the Constitutional Tribunal if they have their competences.”

– I am not attacking Berek’s candidacy because he has this or that political provenance. The Constitutional Tribunal was constructed in such a way that the parliamentary majority has the right to appoint such people to it. I criticize hypocrisy in politics, completely making a joke of voters – claimed Jacek Sasin.

Sasin noted that “after all, Law and Justice was not the first to appoint politicians to the Constitutional Tribunal.” – There is nothing wrong or extraordinary in that. This is also practice in other European countries – he added.

Tusk Admits Berek’s “Flaw” Amid Tribunal Crisis

Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Thursday that he has given conditional consent for Maciej Berek to leave his post as minister for supervising the implementation of government policy. Maciej Berek is to run for a judge of the Constitutional Tribunal. The new Tribunal judge is most likely to be elected at the September session of the Sejm.

The head of government admitted that Berek has the “flaw” of having been a minister in the government. He also added that he himself has not changed his view that there should be “not the slightest traces of politics” in the Tribunal. At the same time, Tusk stated that he could no longer look at the situation around the Tribunal. As he reported, Berek approached the prime minister, saying that everything must be done “to heal this situation as much as possible under current political conditions.”

Maciej Berek is a legal counsel, doctor of legal sciences, assistant professor at the Department of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw; he is also an expert at the Center for Research, Studies and Legislation of the National Chamber of Legal Counselors. In previous years, he held a number of functions in offices serving constitutional organs of public authority.

The Origins of the Constitutional Tribunal Crisis

The dispute over the Constitutional Tribunal began in October 2015, when the Sejm of the then-concluding 7th term (under the PO-PSL government) elected five new judges to the Tribunal. They were to be the successors of three judges whose terms ended on November 6 and two judges whose terms ended in December 2015, and thus already during the next parliamentary term.

In November 2015, the Sejm of the new term, in which PiS already held the majority, adopted resolutions annulling the election of these five judges and then elected new ones.

In December 2015, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that indeed the Sejm under the PO-PSL government had rushed the election of two Tribunal judges, but noted that the election of the remaining three (in place of those judges whose terms ended in November) was correct. President Andrzej Duda did not take all these circumstances into account and accepted the oath from five judges elected by PiS. Because of this, three of the five judges have since been called “substitutes” by the opposition and part of the legal community.

In December 2016, Julia Przyłębska became the president of the Constitutional Tribunal. According to many constitutionalists, Przyłębska’s appointment to this position took place in violation of the law (e.g., due to the fact that so-called “substitute” judges participated in the vote on candidates for Tribunal president). Controversy was also raised by the fact that PiS elected its former MPs Krystyna Pawłowicz and Stanisław Piotrowicz to the Tribunal in 2019.

Controversy Surrounding New Tribunal Judges and Adjudication

The current ruling coalition does not publish Tribunal rulings. In this term, the parliamentary majority did not fill emerging vacancies in the Tribunal until March of this year. At that time, the Sejm elected six judges to the Tribunal, bringing its composition up to the statutory number of 15 judges. These judges were: Magdalena Bentkowska, Dariusz Szostek, Maciej Taborowski, Marcin Dziurda, Krystian Markiewicz, and Anna Korwin-Piotrowska.

On April 1, Judges Szostek and Bentkowska took the oath at the Presidential Palace at the invitation of President Karol Nawrocki. Representatives of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland indicated at the time that the situation of the four remaining judges was being analyzed. A few days later, during a ceremony in the Sejm’s Column Hall, all new judges took the oath with the formula that they were doing so “before the president.” Then they handed written oath texts to the reception desk of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland.

Judges Szostek and Bentkowska took office at the Tribunal on the same day. Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski said that the other four persons did not take office because the events in the Sejm involving them cannot be considered an oath “before the president.”

In June of this year, the Sejm elected a seventh person as a Tribunal judge, Sławomir Patyra. At the end of July, he took the oath in the presence of the president. On the same day, however, he stated that he would not participate in any procedures related to adjudication in the Tribunal until the four judges elected in March by the Sejm are admitted to adjudication.