Polish Parliament: PiS’s judiciary restructuring was unconstitutional Netanyahu: “Surrender or die” ++ Week-long ceasefire talks

Following the change of government in Poland, parliament has declared the restructuring of the country’s judicial council by the previous government as unconstitutional. Three parliamentary resolutions from 2018, 2021 and 2022 on the election of judges as members of the National Judicial Council were adopted “in gross violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland,” according to a resolution adopted on Wednesday.

Due to the controversial judicial reforms of the now replaced national-conservative PiS government, Warsaw was at odds with Brussels for years. The European Commission has taken the country to court several times before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and is still blocking billions in Corona aid. The pro-European government of Donald Tusk, which has been in power for a week now, announced that it would roll back the PiS’s judicial reforms.

The dispute with Brussels also related, among other things, to the changed composition of the State Council for Justice, whose task is to appoint judges. In 2018, the PiS changed its original composition so that the majority of members were no longer appointed by other judges, but by parliament. The Court of Justice criticized that this gave rise to legitimate doubts about the independence of the State Council for the Judiciary. (sda/dpa)