The First President of the Supreme Court has criticized the National Council of the Judiciary’s stance on presidential appointments for judicial assessors without the prime minister’s countersignature. <\/p>\n
The First President of the Supreme Court addressed the National Council of the Judiciary’s position regarding the presentation of appointment acts for over 200 judicial assessors. According to Zbigniew Kapi\u0144ski, the Council increases the dependence of the judiciary’s personnel staffing on political power. The Council argues that appointments made by President Karol Nawrocki are ineffective due to the lack of a countersignature from Prime Minister Donald Tusk.<\/p>\n
President Nawrocki decided to appoint 211 district court assessors and 18 provincial administrative court assessors. However, the National Council of the Judiciary maintains that these nominations are ineffective without the prime minister’s countersignature. The dispute over the prime minister’s signature could impact the futures of more than 200 individuals.<\/p>\n
In early July, Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General Waldemar \u017burek appealed for an urgent invitation to the Presidential Palace to allow over 200 young lawyers who successfully passed the judicial exam to begin their service. The president responded to the appeal by handing over appointment acts early last week. Nevertheless, the path to adjudication for the young judges may prove even more challenging than expected, as the Council cited Article 144 paragraph 3 of the Polish Constitution, which states that official acts of the president not listed among prerogatives require the prime minister’s countersignature.<\/p>\n
The Constitutional Tribunal ruled on June 25 that the prime minister’s countersignature requirement for the effectiveness of appointing judicial assessors and filling certain Supreme Court positions is unconstitutional. The Tribunal acknowledged that the constitution explicitly lists presidential acts not requiring a countersignature, but noted that this catalog cannot be read solely literally, recognizing a category of derivative actions functionally necessary to execute primary prerogatives.<\/p>\n
Zbigniew Kapi\u0144ski stated that a judicial assessor is independent and enjoys statutory protection against removal from office, though not the exact same irremovability granted to a judge under the constitution. Kapi\u0144ski emphasized that an assessor’s employment relationship is temporary and their irremovability stems from statute rather than the constitution.<\/p>\n
Kapi\u0144ski noted that since the prime minister does not participate in appointing judges who enjoy full constitutional guarantees of irremovability, there is no rational reason to make the appointment of assessors dependent on a political decision by the prime minister. He added that the Council’s position is incomprehensible, especially since the chairman of the Council participated in the Presidential Palace ceremony and handed assessors their judicial chains purchased with Council funds.<\/p>\n
Zbigniew Kapi\u0144ski assessed that the Council’s position drags it into a political dispute, as it would mean the prime minister could decide whether and when a person indicated by the Council and nominated by the president begins their adjudicatory duties. The Supreme Court president indicated this would allow the prime minister to indefinitely block appointments without presenting reasons or ensuring effective control over such a decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The First President of the Supreme Court has criticized the National Council of the Judiciary’s stance on presidential appointments for judicial assessors without the prime minister’s countersignature. Dispute Over Presidential Appointments The First President of the Supreme Court addressed the National Council of the Judiciary’s position regarding the presentation of appointment acts for over 200 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}