Warsaw chastised over constitutional crisis

A human rights body found judicial independence is still under threat in Poland.

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WARSAW — Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice government isn’t doing enough to end the long-running crisis over the country’s top constitutional court, according to an opinion issued Friday by the Venice Commission.

The commission, a democracy watchdog and a body of the Council of Europe, found that the country’s new law regulating the functioning of the Constitutional Tribunal does not guarantee the independence of the judiciary and the position of the tribunal as the final arbiter in constitutional issues.

It said the law is better than a previous version, criticized by the commission earlier this year, but the “improvements are too limited in scope.”

“Instead of unblocking the precarious situation of the Constitutional Tribunal, the parliament and government continue to challenge its position,” the opinion said.

The Polish government has been locked in a battle over control of the 15-judge tribunal since winning last year’s election. The new government rejected five judges appointed by the previous parliament and instead chose its own replacements, and later refused to publish a tribunal decision finding that action was largely unconstitutional.

The government’s efforts to impose new legal restrictions on the tribunal were also ruled unconstitutional, but that decision has also been ignored.

The European Union has become involved, launching an unprecedented procedure against Poland for violating rule of law which could end with Warsaw having its voting rights as an EU member suspended.

The Venice Commission was invited to investigate the issue by Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski. But after the commission’s first report that said the government’s actions threatened to cripple the tribunal, the government has been much less cooperative.

Ahead of the ruling, Waszczykowski called the commission “completely biased and only representing the views of the [Constitutional Tribunal].”

The Polish government did not send a delegation to Friday’s commission meeting.

The opinion was sent ahead of time to Warsaw, and the government’s response, seen by the Polish Press Agency, called it “unreliable, one-sided and shallow,” and said it reflected the views of opposition parties.

Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Law and Justice and Poland’s most powerful politician, has long been suspicious of the tribunal’s power to rule legislation unconstitutional, fearing it could block his legal agenda.