A cascade of problems around access to funds from the Polish National Reconstruction Plan is mounting. Although the plan was approved a year ago, the Polish government has still not applied for payment of the money. The current problems of the rulers push it further and further into the future.
According to the government, the application for payments depends on the entry into force of the law transferring disciplinary cases of judges from the Supreme Court to the Supreme Administrative Court. talking about it Before signing the law on the Supreme Court, President Andrzej Duda appealed to the Constitutional Tribunal – and here a huge problem arose.
A group of judges of the Constitutional Tribunal, claiming that Julia Przyłębska’s presidency expired in December last year, does not comply with her orders. Court without them cannot recognize the president’s request. It requires adjudication by the full bench of the Constitutional Tribunal, which according to the regulations means 11 judges. Therefore, the law on the Supreme Court cannot enter into force, and this, in turn, does not allow the government to submit an application for payments from the KPO.
MPs of the ruling party submitted to the Sejm a project to reduce the Court’s full bench from 11 to 9 judges; that’s how many judges are ready to rule on the president’s motion. However, work on the project to unlock the Constitutional Tribunal was paralyzed by the opposition of Sovereign Poland MPs. Apart from them, PiS cannot count on anyone else in the Sejm, because the entire opposition considered the idea to be a political game and unacceptable tampering with the law aimed at obtaining short-term effects.
The draft, almost ready to be voted on at the last session of the Sejm, was therefore also blocked, at the stage of submitting an amendment by the authors themselves … extending the period of its entry into force.
Meaning that the ability to unlock the Tribunal has been blockedwhich could lead to the unblocking of the act on the Supreme Court and, as a result, according to the government, unblocking the possibility of submitting the first application for payment from the KPO.
The deadlines for each of the attempts to break these blockades are gradually shifted to a later date. The government hoped that the president would sign the law on the Supreme Court and this would solve the problem six months ago. Instead, the president sent the bill to the Tribunal, and just yesterday the Tribunal again failed to gather the necessary number of judges and postponed the hearing until the end of June.
The Sejm, in turn, postponed the unblocking of the Tribunal from the previous session to the next one, in mid-June, but the bill enabling this has yet to be submitted to the Senate (which has 30 days to evaluate it), and then to the Sejm again.
If the judges of the Constitutional Tribunal do not “argue”, they will deal with the law on the Supreme Court during the holidays at the earliest.
The cascade of problems described above, which the rulers who caused them (represented by the Sejm, the President and the Tribunal) have been unable to deal with for half a year, at least gives the possibility of predicting events and dates. However, it is necessary to remember about external factors, which are also significant, if not crucial.
One of them is the release next Monday by the EU Court of Justice of the judgment on disciplinary judiciary in Poland. This is a case where failure to comply with the CJEU safeguards is already costing Poland over PLN 2.5 billion (this is a daily penalty of one million, and from April 0.5 million).
The verdict will not be favorable for Poland, e.g. because of Poland’s ignoring the provisions of the CJEU for many months and the still lack of regulations regarding the rule of law expected by the EC and the CJEU. The European Commission cannot ignore it when considering possible KPO payments, the more so that the rule of law is affected by several so-called milestones recorded as terms of use of the plan.
Certainly, it is also impossible to pass over the appointment in Poland, which worries not only the European Commission, but also the United States commission to study Russian influence. It also raises huge legal questions. In this matter, the rulers firmly insist on full compliance with the Constitution and the principles of a democratic state ruled by law, but the reality is not so.
Commissioner Didier Reynders yesterday asked the Polish Minister for European Affairs “to provide the analysis and all relevant documents related to the legislative process without delay. This would also include the views of relevant stakeholders, including the Ombudsman and the legislative offices of the Sejm and Senate, as well as any other documents deemed relevant.”
These are not secret documents, so the EU commissioner will probably receive an opinion from the Commissioner for Human Rights, stating that the act on the commission is inconsistent with at least several provisions of the Constitution, a set of opinions of the greatest legal authorities recognizing that there are many more violations of the Constitution, and finally almost unheard words capitulation contained in the opinion of the Legislative Office of the Senate: “Due to the rank and nature of the fundamental objections raised by the act in the constitutional perspective, the preparation of proposals for amendments was abandoned. The act under review is affected by constitutional defects that cannot be removed at the stage of legislative work in the Senate, and in its present form it should not become part of the Polish legal order.’
Exactly However, in this form, the act was signed by the president and entered into force yesterday.
All the above-mentioned reasons together and each separately may close Poland’s access to the funds of the National Reconstruction Plan approved a year ago. Regardless of the fact that if it hadn’t been for a series of mistakes made by the government, our country would have been able to benefit from them for a long time.
Source: rmf24.pl
