“Neither the government nor parliament has the power today to force President of the Republic Karol Nawrocki to sign laws that would be bad for Poland!” wrote Zbigniew Bogucki on X. In this way, the head of the presidential office referred to the draft of the so-called “rule of law” bill, which targets some Polish judges.
Last week, Minister of Justice Waldemar Żurek signed a regulation amending the Rules on the Functioning of Common Courts, which was published in the Journal of Laws. The amendment concerns, among other things, the operation of the Random Case Assignment System (SLPS). The solutions set out in this regulation in effect “abolish” the random assignment of judges in courts.
This week, the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS) submitted a request to declare that the provisions of this regulation are entirely unconstitutional, pointing out that the Minister of Justice had exceeded his statutory authority when issuing the amendment.
President Karol Nawrocki, in turn, described this change as “a blatant act of lawlessness” intended “to enable the manual selection of judges according to the political needs and expectations of those in power.”
On Thursday, the Ministry of Justice presented the draft of the so-called “rule of law” bill. It provides, among other things, for the repetition of judicial appointment competitions carried out under the procedure involving the National Council of the Judiciary in its post-2017 form, as well as for clarifying the status of “improperly appointed” judges. “With this bill, we want to show a compromise, because we want it to be signed, not thrown into the trash by the president,” assured Minister of Justice Waldemar Żurek.
That same day, the head of the presidential office wrote on X: “Neither the government nor parliament has the power today to force President of the Republic Karol Nawrocki to sign laws that would be bad for Poland“, emphasized Zbigniew Bogucki.
“What Minister Żurek is saying makes it clear: he wants to use the same laws, but only when ‘these are their people’ – for example, people from the Iustitia association, with which the minister himself was affiliated. Then, in his view, everything will be ‘fine,’ because they will be the ones deciding who sits on the National Council of the Judiciary. This is a way of thinking that has nothing to do with the rule of law,” assessed Bogucki.
As the head of the presidential office pointed out, “if Minister Żurek really wants to change the laws concerning the KRS, he should do it in accordance with the constitutional procedure: pass the bill through the Sejm and the Senate, submit it to the president’s desk, obtain his signature, and publish it in the Journal of Laws. Not bypass the law in a brutal and ostentatious way by issuing blatantly unconstitutional regulations,” stressed Bogucki.