EU Commission wants Poland to be fined

Brussels - The EU Commission has applied to the European Court of Justice to impose a fine on Poland. The commission said the move was a response to the ongoing efforts of the Polish government to undermine Poland's judicial system.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that case law within the EU must be fair and independent everywhere. The Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, warned: “The European Court of Justice (EugH) issued two judgments in July aimed at ensuring the independence of Polish law. It is important that Poland fully adhere to these judgments."

Kaczynski announces the dissolution of the chamber
According to Vice-President Vera Jurova, the reason for the measures taken by the EU Commission is the uninterrupted activity of the Polish Judicial Disciplinary Chamber. According to the Polish government, it is there to prosecute the wrongdoing of Polish judges. The ECJ had already forbidden the chamber to continue working in July of this year. Then in August the chairman of the Polish ruling party PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, announced that the disciplinary body in its current form would be dissolved.

But the chamber is still working on some old cases, as reported by the German press agency. The EU Commission's application for a fine is embedded in a wider dispute between the EU and Poland. It is about which competences the individual EU states have with regard to their national jurisprudence.

Source: Junge Freiheit