Polish President Duda blocks new judicial reform

The judicial reforms of the new centre-left government in Poland continue to meet with stubborn resistance from the country's conservatives who were voted out of office.

President Andrzej Duda, the last representative of the former ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) with powers, has forwarded the new government's changes to the National Council of the Judiciary to the Constitutional Court for review.

The move was announced by Duda's head of chancellery Malgorzata Paprocka in Warsaw on Friday. She had called the new regulations "blatantly unconstitutional" in July. The law cannot come into force without Duda's signature.

The National Council of the Judiciary in Poland nominates judges for vacant positions and protects the independence of the courts. In 2018, the PiS government decided that 15 of the 25 members of the council should be appointed by parliament - previously, judges had determined the majority of members.

This brought Poland into conflict with the European Commission. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) also criticized the fact that the National Council of the Judiciary was no longer independent.

The EU has dropped its proceedings against Poland because the new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has promised to restore the independence of the judiciary.

However, the path to achieving this is long and arduous. In future, the judiciary will once again fill 15 of the 25 positions on the National Council of the Judiciary by free election.

Under the reform, council members who have been appointed since 2017 will no longer be eligible for election. Duda takes issue with this point, saying there is no reason to exclude judges from the election on the basis of their date of appointment.