“EU institutions, including the Court of Justice of the European Union, are assigning themselves various powers, which undermines democracy at both the national and EU levels. Today, we are seeing yet another example of this. If this phenomenon continues and intensifies, it will lead to a revolt by the Member States and, consequently, to the breakup of the EU,” Professor Przemysław Żurawski vel Grajewski, a political scientist and expert in international affairs, told the Niezależna.pl portal.
At today’s hearing, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, by failing to respect CJEU case law, had breached several fundamental principles of EU law. Moreover, the judgment stated that the Constitutional Tribunal does not meet the requirements of an independent and impartial court established by law. The decision resulted from a complaint lodged with the CJEU by the European Commission in 2023.
Let us recall that the European Commission challenged before the CJEU the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgments of 14 July and 7 October 2021, in which the Tribunal held that certain provisions of the EU treaties were incompatible with the Polish Constitution. The Commission also sought a declaration that the Constitutional Tribunal does not meet the requirements of an independent and impartial court established by law, due to irregularities in the appointment procedures of three judges in December 2015 and in the procedure for appointing Julia Przyłębska as President of the Constitutional Tribunal in December 2016.
“The CJEU’s decision has no impact whatsoever on the functioning of the constitutional organs of the Republic of Poland. It was issued entirely outside the competencies of that body. The CJEU is not competent to assess the Polish Constitution or the Polish Constitutional Tribunal,”
the Constitutional Tribunal emphasized in its official statement.
“The CJEU is acting beyond its competences”
Niezależna.pl asked Professor Przemysław Żurawski vel Grajewski, a political scientist and expert in international affairs, to comment on today’s ruling.
“Pursuant to Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union, the European Union has only those competences that the Member States have conferred upon it in the treaties. It is obvious that the Member States did not confer upon the EU, and thus upon the CJEU, the competence to assess the constitutional organs of the Member States. The constitutional systems of those states, including the role and structure of constitutional courts, are not part of the EU acquis. The CJEU, in turn, is tasked with assessing the conformity of state actions with EU law,”
the expert explains.
“Since EU law does not regulate the judicial systems of the Member States, including constitutional courts, the CJEU is not competent to pronounce on this matter. It is acting in an usurpatory manner, beyond its competences,” he adds.
“Hence, the necessity, Poland should put this forward, of establishing a CJEU Subsidiarity Chamber composed of the heads of the constitutional courts of the Member States and their equivalents, whose task would be to assess whether the CJEU is acting within its competences or exceeding them,” the interlocutor postulates.
“This is not the first decision of this kind. A recent decision from November, concerning the obligation to recognize same-sex marriages, was also taken outside the CJEU’s remit. This is a systemic flaw of the EU, resulting in self-mandating. EU institutions assign powers to themselves, which undermines democracy at both the national and EU levels. If this phenomenon continues and escalates, it will lead to the disintegration of the EU, because nations will not allow themselves to be governed by institutions that are in no way accountable to them,”
he adds.
“This is currently the main mechanism for expanding the EU. Note that since 2007, there has been no new European Union treaty,” Professor Żurawski vel Grajewski reminds us.
“There was the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, then the Amsterdam Treaty, which entered into force in 1999, the Nice Treaty signed in 2000, followed by the failed Constitutional Treaty, which collapsed in 2005, and then the Lisbon Treaty (2007-2009). It is clear that for 16 years now, we have had no new treaty, whereas previously they appeared every few years. Why? Because of the experience of the failure of the Constitutional Treaty. EU elites wanted to deepen integration, while citizens opposed it. The French and the Dutch rejected the project in referendums,”
he points out.
“As a result, the Lisbon Treaty was pushed through as a maneuver, but there was no desire to repeat the political risk of adopting a new treaty deepening the EU a few years later. The method was therefore changed, and it consists precisely of legal activism. The European Parliament or the European Commission devises something beyond their competences, after which the CJEU rules that it nevertheless falls within their competences or itself declares that it lies within its own remit. In this way, unlawfully and usurping, the competences of the European Union are expanded. And this will ultimately lead to a revolt,”
the expert concludes.