Poland’s Supreme Court justice vows to defy retirement order
WARSAW: Poland’s Supreme Court chief justice was set for a showdown with the European Union (EU) country’s president yesterday, vowing to defy controversial reforms pushed through by the right-wing government forcing top judges to retire early.
The EU on Monday launched legal action against Poland, the latest salvo in a bitter battle over sweeping judicial changes that critics have decried as unconstitutional.
Chief Justice Malgorzata Gersdorf has branded the move a ‘purge’ and vowed to reject any retirement notice that would cut short her constitutionally guaranteed six-year term.
She said she is due to meet President Andrzej Duda yesterday before the legislation comes into effect at midnight.
“What will I do? I won’t accept it. I feel I’m the Supreme Court chief justice until 2020,” Gersdorf told commercial broadcaster TVN24.
“Tomorrow there will be a purge of the Supreme Court conducted under the guise of retirement reform,” she later told law students.
Demonstrations in support of Gersdorf and other defiant judges are due to take place yesterday and today around the court’s offices in Warsaw.
Twenty-seven of the top court’s 73 judges are affected by the reform pushed through by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government that brings down the retirement age from 70 to 65.
The government has refused to back down despite the EU action, insisting the changes are needed to tackle corruption and overhaul a judicial system still haunted by the communist era
Supreme Court justices last Thursday endorsed Gersdorf’s right to keep her post in line with a constitutional provision mandating a six-year term for the chief justice.
They also said that any justice who took up their duties before the day the new reform comes into force ‘should remain in their post until the age of 70, without meeting any additional conditions’.
Under the law, the affected judges can ask Duda to prolong their terms but he can accept or deny their requests without giving a reason. Sixteen judges have done so, according to Polish media reports.
The European Commission, the bloc’s powerful executive arm, said Monday that the changes would undermine judicial independence in Poland, breaching the country’s obligations under EU law. — AFP