Polish Constitutional Tribunal

Si les crises obligent à réagir, elles obligent aussi à réfléchir. Indépendamment de ses conséquences pratiques et immédiates, qui ne seront pas abordées ici, la crise constitutionnelle à laquelle nous assistons en Pologne inspire quelques réflexions théoriques, relatives à la nature de l’argument juridique. Révélant les limites de l’approche contentieuse du droit, le conflit opposant le Tribunal constitutionnel polonais à la majorité parlementaire dévoile, semble-t-il, les faiblesses de la doxa positiviste. En effet, alors même qu’ils échappent à la compétence des tribunaux polonais, les agissements du parti au pouvoir (« Droit et Justice ») n’ont pourtant pas échappé à la critique des milieux juridiques. En reprochant à la majorité actuelle les violations de la Constitution, les juristes ne peuvent pourtant pas recourir à des arguments conventionnels, comme la teneur des textes ou l’autorité de la chose jugée. Dans les circonstances exceptionnelles, qui sont celles d’une crise constitutionnelle majeure, les données « positivistes » ne suffisent pas : les textes sont muets et les tribunaux incompétents. Faut-il en déduire l’absence du droit en tant que tel, laissant le sort de la République aux mains des hommes politiques ? Telle n’est pas l’opinion de la majorité des juristes polonais...

While memory laws emerged in the Western European context almost three decades ago, there has been a recent proliferation of memory laws in Central and Eastern Europe in the 2010s. This emerging body of law, contrary to its origins, appears to fortify a state-sanctioned victimhood and seeks to establish a preferable narrative of history in public memory through legal means. The outlook on WWII history and the dominance of Soviet communism is a central point of contestation as CEE states construct opposing historical narratives that implicate one another in the ongoing war for remembrance. In our contribution, we focus on three CEE states as country studies, covering memory laws in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as analysing their memory legislation in the context of memory wars. Our analysis subsequently highlights how ‘memory wars’ unfold as proxy wars for contemporary state identities. A quest for mnemonical security, states securitise the governance of memory which is hence excluded from public discourse and subjugated to restrictive permissible discourses and remembrance practices. These methods of mnemonic governance via militant memory laws thereby erode the foundational elements of liberal democracy, weaken constitutional orders as well as add fuel to nationalist tendencies, all of which have implications for democratic backsliding. Furthermore, our contribution demonstrates that memory laws in all three countries have been adopted as swords and shields amidst the mutual memory wars: (1) between Poland and Ukraine, on the one side, against Russia, on the other side, as well as (2) Poland and Ukraine between themselves, and (3) Russia and Ukraine between themselves. These diametrically opposed historical narratives, institutionalised through memory laws, thus have significant implications and can potentially deepen conflicts, historical feuds, and ethnic and national tensions.

One of the politically momentous and legally precedential constitutional problems of recent years which had to be faced by the Polish constitutional court has been the dispute whether it is possible to exclude the applicable statute defining the organization and procedure of the CT proceedings as a basis for adjudication.
An analysis of the judgment of the Tribunal addressing that issue proves that the Polish constitutional court excluded the possibility that the same regulation could serve simultaneously as the object of control and the basis for control proceedings. This results from the essence of constitutional control of the law which in such arrangement of its key elements would simply repeal itself, i.e. would lead to its own invalidation. Subordination of constitutional judges exclusively to the Constitution extends to all actions they perform in serving their office and other consubstantial manifestations of exercising the power to judge. This is a derivative of jurisprudential responsibilities of the Tribunal, which include both passing a final judgment as to compliance of challenged statutes, as well as other acts of application of law.
Art. 195 (1) in fine of the Polish Constitution lays down a competence norm for a CT judge to refuse, in specific circumstances, to abide by the CT Act. One of the analytical assumptions is recognition of the finality of CT judgments. The possibility to exclude a provision of the CT Act is an action in the area of application of law. Determination of the legal framework for passing judgments has nothing in common with constitutional control of challenged statutes. Those actions derive from totally different orders and their goals are different.

Once subjugated the Constitutional Tribunal, the United Right coalition, in power in Poland since 2015, brings forward plans to assert control over Polish judiciary, including the Supreme Court. Considering the next year’s local elections, and the project of a new electoral code, the relevance of the judicial reform pushed through by the majority is unprecedented. Indeed, Poles who join the street protests against these changes are not naive : since the independence of the courts is the last guarantee of the electoral process, the democracy and the rule of law are at stake.

Après l’assujettissement du Tribunal constitutionnel, la Droite Unie, au pouvoir en Pologne depuis 2015, s’en prend aux tribunaux judiciaires et à la Cour suprême. A un an des élections locales, nouveau code électoral à la clé, l’enjeu de la réforme de la justice prônée par la majorité au pouvoir est de taille. Les Polonais sortis dans la rue pour s’y opposer ne s’y trompent pas : dans la mesure où l’indépendance du juge judiciaire demeure le dernier gage de la sincérité du processus électoral, il en va de la survie de l’Etat de droit démocratique.

The European Court of Justice ordered to suspend the propulsory retirement of the Polish Supreme Court judges. As Poles remain largely euro-enthusiasts, the government had no choice but to comply with the ruling, hoping not to lose the European Parliament elections in May 2019. Yet, the judges’ victory is only partial. The independence of the Polish judiciary has been seriously undermined by a set of controversial laws introduced since 2015.

Par ses ordonnances du 19 octobre et du 17 décembre 2018, la CJUE a suspendu le limogeage des juges de la Cour suprême de Pologne. Dans un pays qui demeure très largement euro-enthousiaste, le gouvernement a dû céder aux injonctions de la Cour de Luxembourg pour éviter la débâcle aux élections européennes prévues en 2019. La victoire des juges n’est pourtant que partielle. Depuis 2015, la justice polonaise a subi une série de « réformes » qui ont considérablement affaibli l’indépendance de la magistrature.

The digital age has reconfigured the security services, especially the forms of mass surveillance aimed at preventing various threats to society. However, this scenario may become problematic from the perspective of protecting the freedom of the media and journalistic privilege. The author of this article offers an overview of the scope of the protection of the journalistic privilege pursuant to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as well as its management in Poland from the developments prepared by its Constitutional Court.

The paper is dedicated to describing the way of reception by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of the "chilling effect", i.e. an institution related to such activities of public authorities that form an indirect act of deterrence regarding the execution of constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms, esp. the freedom of expression. The discussed concept has originated in judicial decisions of the US Supreme Court and has spread into many contemporary legal systems, including jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Although it is evident that the Tribunal "took over" that concept from the ECHR, it in fact developed its own, unfortunately internally inconsistent, understanding of the chilling effect. Four different ways of application of chilling effect may be noticed in judicial decisions of the Polish CT, while only two of them reflect the perception of this institution by the US Supreme Court and the ECHR.

A summary of the paper is published as "Reception of chilling effect by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal", Academia Letters 2021, Article 654