Just under a month after the opposition’s electoral victory, the new majority in the Polish parliament took the first step towards restoring the rule of law. Yesterday, Parliament appointed its four representatives to the National Judicial Council (KRS), responsible for nominating judges and monitoring their independence, replacing members appointed by the right-wing nationalist party PiS.
However, the new appointments only slightly change the majority in the KRS; in fact, it is still controlled by PiS members. Before the vote on new KRS members, the new pro-European parliamentary president, Szymon Holownia, said that given the “damage caused by PiS in the KRS”, it could take “several months” before it is reformed.
The EU has been at loggerheads with Poland since 2017 over its controversial judicial reform. At that time, the PiS government had, among other things, reformed the KRS. Brussels accused Warsaw of having severely restricted the rule of law. In 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that the reformed Judicial Council did not ensure sufficient independence of the judiciary from government and legislation. A little later, Poland’s highest court ruled similarly.
Tusk Citizens Coalition Core Election Promise
The return to the rule of law is one of the central electoral promises of the coalition of liberal-conservative citizens in the opposition of former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which secured a majority in the parliamentary elections.
Although PiS became the strongest force on October 15, it is considered unlikely to achieve a parliamentary majority. Regardless, President Andrzej Duda gave him the order to form a government. Opposition parties are preparing to take over the government, but first they have to wait for the expected failure of PiS’s efforts.