If a public official or any other person causes damage through their own fault, the one who paid for that damage has the right to recover those funds in so-called recourse proceedings – argued Minister of Justice Waldemar Żurek during a press conference. “The legal construction does not deserve to be taken seriously in legal discourse,” responded Lawyers for Poland. Judges of the Republic of Poland turned to sarcasm, writing about Żurek’s work of thought that is unknown to civil law.
The head of the Ministry of Justice announced that he would initiate recourse lawsuits against “those who are so-called neo-judges in the Supreme Court.” As he said, their appointment through a flawed procedure means that “they do not constitute a court” yet they receive remuneration merely for entering the courtroom. “I am quite consistent in these actions and I will initiate such recourse lawsuits,” he declared.
“If a public official or any other person causes damage through their own fault, the one who paid for that damage has the right to recover those funds in so-called recourse proceedings. For me, it is a completely unacceptable situation when the state budget (…) has to pay compensation for ECtHR judgments, merely for participating in a courtroom hearing,” he said.
In his assessment, these are often excellent lawyers who “know that their actions will lead to compensation,” which follows from established case law. He once again appealed to the so-called neo-judges to refrain from adjudicating until this situation is resolved by law.
He announced that when the first recourse lawsuit appears, he will meet with journalists and explain the reasons why, in his view and “in the view of many lawyers in Poland, this may be an effective way to halt the compensations that Poland pays.”
There are already first reactions to the minister’s idea. As Judges of the Republic of Poland report, the lawsuits are “an unprecedented and unknown work of civil law born of Żurek’s thought.” Echoing them is another association – Lawyers for Poland, who wrote that the legal construction presented by Żurek “does not deserve to be taken seriously in legal discourse.”