Polish government stands firm against EU’s threats on unpopular law reform

Poland is defying threats of legal action by the European Union as its government refuses to abandon efforts to clear out the country’s highest court, including the enforced retirement of its president.

The Justice Minister insisted on Thursday that Malgorzata Gersdorf, the Supreme Court’s chief justice, had retired under a law that she has rejected as unconstitutional.

The EU has criticised the measure as a threat to judicial independence.

Ms Gersdorf, 65, refused to comply with the law that brings down the retirement age for Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65. She says Article 183.3 of the constitution sets her term at six years, overriding the new law.

Ms Gersdorf was working at the Supreme Court on Thursday, a court spokeswoman said. Demonstrators had pledged to protect her at the court premises on Wednesday, the day the law took effect, but the government failed to act against her.

Zbigniew Ziobro, justice minister in the right-wing government, said the age-limit legislation voids the six-year appointment.

“The constitution clearly states that whether someone is going into retirement or not is decided by common law,” Mr Ziobro said.

Campaigners said the chief justice’s defiance had rattled the government.

“We drew the world’s attention to the attempted constitutional coup,” said Bartlomiej Przymusinski, a leader of Iustitia, the independent professional association of judges in Poland that organised protests. “The next step will be a legal complaint to the European Court of Justice.”

Poland’s ruling Law & Justice party said its move is designed to modernise a court system that has been untouched since the fall of communism. The move has hallmarks of similar overhauls by authoritarian governments in other post-communist states and concentrates power in the executive.

Billions of euros in aid transfers to Poland are now in jeopardy. The European Commission is determined to discipline Poland for failing to uphold democratic values, which could strip the country of its voting rights in EU organisations.

The new law would require 27 of the 73 judges to leave their jobs. It allows them to petition the president to stay beyond that time and at least 16 have done so. But Ms Gersdorf refuses to recognise the change and has vowed to keep working until her term ends.

Lech Walesa, the hero of the anti-communist movement, participated in the street protests in Warsaw.

“Anyone who opposes the separation of powers is a criminal,” Mr Walesa told the crowds.

“We must hold these people accountable because they’re acting against Poland’s interests.”