judiciary

The 2019 European Parliament election campaign was quite exceptional. First of all, because of the extraordinary political circumstances surrounding it. But also due to the election results and the themes of the campaign that determined a landslide victory of one of the parties. So, what happened in Poland?

The current state of the Bulgarian judiciary facilitates a poor accountability of the Prosecutor General, who is essentially immune to criminal prosecution and practically cannot be suspended and dismissed from office.

The longer bad blood is circulating in the body, the sicker we get. The same applies to judiciary. The longer we allow politicians to control the courts, to appoint judges, pressure them, the more difficult healing the judiciary will get.

The report by the Lex Super Omnia Prosecutors’ Association details the negative consequences of the changes in the prosecutorial service implemented by the Law and Justice government in Poland. It also reveals a number of pathological situations related mainly to personnel policy.

In recent years, the system of disciplinary punishment of judges has also changed. It was made very dependent on the Minister of Justice. It enables disciplinary proceedings against judges and their harassment for disobedience to the authorities and criticism of actions harmful to the rule of law.

The fact that the Polish public TV is the biggest fake news factory in the country has been well known for some time. But the news about the Ministry of Justice becoming a national center of hate speech truly electrified Poland in July.

In mid-June, hundreds of thousands of Czechs took to the streets of Prague calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš in light of both a criminal investigation in the Czech Republic over alleged fraud, and an EU investigation over the abuse of EU funds by his Agrofert conglomerate.

While the vote-counting in Ukraine continues, it is already clear that President Volodymyr Zelensky has secured the power over legislative and, consequently, executive branches of the government. His political force, the Servant of the People party, has won a landslide victory in the snap parliamentary elections.

On Tuesday, June 18, 2019, the European Court of Justice considered two preliminary requests submitted by courts in Lodz and Warsaw. Both courts are concerned whether the new system of disciplinary proceedings against judges meets EU standards.

While the Member States still have at least the sole jurisdiction in criminal matters, they maintain a good deal of sovereignty. Once an EU “federal” criminal framework begins to take root, it won’t take long before we will all be committing three EU felonies a day.