Top EU court finds against Polish judicial reforms

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00:00 The European Court of Justice has today passed judgment and ruled that Poland violated the EU rule of law

00:05 with its reform of the country's judiciary back in 2019.

00:08 Brussels says the reform left the Polish Supreme Court without the necessary independence and impartiality.

00:16 For years, Brussels has been warning that Poland risks heading down a path towards autocracy

00:20 with a clampdown on fundamental rights.

00:23 Let's get more now from France 24's Dave Keating, who's standing by for us at the European Council in Brussels.

00:27 Dave, just tell us a little bit more about today's ruling.

00:30 Yes, so what this ruling by the European Court of Justice, the EU Supreme Court, is saying is that

00:38 they are yet again agreeing with the European Commission that this constitutional tribunal set up in 2019

00:45 violates the principle of the rule of law.

00:48 Why? Because it is a government-appointed body that can fire judges, that can interfere with the judiciary,

00:56 and that's the commission, and ECJ say violates EU principles.

01:00 Now, this has been a big back and forth for several years.

01:03 Poland has already been subject to fines of one million euros per day because of a previous judgment

01:11 saying that this tribunal was not respecting the principle of rule of law.

01:15 Poland made some adjustments to it.

01:17 They got that fine reduced to half of that, so half a million euros per day.

01:22 But that fine is now something around 500 million euros, and that is supposed to be coming out of Poland,

01:28 what Poland is owed through the COVID recovery fund, which is still being dispersed.

01:32 So the Polish government wants to get this funding.

01:34 They want some kind of ruling from the ECJ saying that they've adjusted this judiciary system that they've set up.

01:42 However, there is a big split in the government about how far they should go to do so.

01:47 And even there's a law that was supposed to be going through the Polish legislature to change that constitutional tribunal system

01:54 more in line with what the ECJ is asking for, but in a surprise move, the Polish president, President Duda,

02:00 just referred that to the very court system that is under fire.

02:05 So this has been a big back and forth, and the ball is now in the government's court, how they're going to respond to this.

02:10 Are they going to say, "Okay, we've exhausted all options here. We have to comply."

02:15 Or are they going to dig in their heels and lose it out on that COVID funding and perhaps even worse?

02:21 All eyes will be on Warsaw for that.

02:23 And Dave, as we've been talking, we've been looking at protest pictures from the weekend.

02:27 I mean, huge crowds of people taking to the streets.

02:29 So clearly a lot of people there in Poland do share that concern of Brussels,

02:35 that Poland is sort of heading down a sort of rather slippery slope.

02:40 Yeah, this is part of the wider context here that a lot of Polish people, particularly city residents,

02:48 are very angry with the right-wing populist government, the Law and Justice Party,

02:53 for a number of actions kind of dismantling the rule of law and democratic freedoms.

02:57 These protests this weekend were specifically about a new anti-Russian influence law that the government has proposed,

03:04 which coincidentally would cover the time period from 2007.

03:08 That's when the opposition leader, Donald Tusk, was prime minister of Poland.

03:13 He later went on to become the president of the European Council, here where I'm at now.

03:17 And the opposition in Poland is calling this the Lex Tusk.

03:20 They say it's a law specifically designed to target him so that he can't challenge the ruling party in the next election.

03:28 But all those protests were also very much focused on this constitutional tribunal and this issue of the judiciary.

03:34 It's got all these things happening all at once.

03:37 And the Polish government has that election that they have to look ahead to.

03:41 And people are accusing the government, and those critics include the European Union and the US government,

03:47 which might hold more sway with the Polish government, that that is an interference with politics that is unacceptable.

03:54 So a lot of pressure on Warsaw to adjust these policies. The question is, will they?

03:59 Okay, well, thank you very much indeed for that update.

04:02 From Brussels, Dave Keating. Thank you.

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