The government of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (pro-European and centrist) has presented a bill that intervenes in the body that deals with the selection and appointment of judges: it is the new government's first step to restore the independence of the judiciary. The reforms in the opposite direction carried out by the previous government have been reversed.
Introducing the proposal, Justice Minister Adam Bodnar explained that this law and subsequent laws aim to reverse the effects of the reform carried out in 2017 by the nationalist Law and Justice government (far-right and Eurosceptic), which, among other things, receives in Parliament the power to appoint more than half of the 25 officials of the National Council of Judges (KRS), the body that selects and appoints judges and proposes their professional development: until then, other judges had elected them.
The 2017 reform was followed by several reforms that effectively allowed “Law and Justice” to control the Polish judiciary and courts: most notably the creation of a disciplinary commission within the Constitutional Court, the aim of which was to punish judges deemed overly politicized were valid.
The reforms were seen by many as incompatible with the separation of powers on which democracies are based and had become the main cause of an institutional conflict with the European Union. The Law and Justice-led Polish government promised to change it, but never kept its promise.
This stalemate, which also affected several other decisions in the area of law and justice, had significantly disrupted the provision of European funds to Poland: it did not receive the money from the Next Generation EU, also known as the Recovery Fund, i.e. the major financing plan launched by Poland The Union was granted to the member states to contain the economic crisis triggered by the pandemic, nor the so-called cohesion funds, i.e. the money from the European Union's multi-year budget, which is distributed primarily to the poorest states. Poland is the main recipient of the Cohesion Funds and one of the main recipients of the Reconstruction Fund, and their suspension posed major economic and political problems to the Law and Justice Government.
Something is likely to change with the new government: Tusk has actually promised to intervene in the reforms of his predecessors and to bring the Polish justice system closer to that of the other countries in the Union. Presenting the reform, Bodnar confirmed that it was a “fundamental” project and that “step by step we will restore the rule of law.” However, he explained that it would not be a simple process: although it was likely that the new law would be passed by Parliament, many details of the measure would have to be negotiated with President Andrzej Duda, whose signature would be required for final approval. However, Duda has been at the center of a very tough political conflict with Tusk's government for several months and is trying by all means to obstruct the new political course, even going so far as to use his powers in questionable ways.