The ECtHR Steps into the Ring
For the last two years, the fight for safeguarding the principle of the rule of law in Poland has been dominated by the ECJ’s case law. In this fight, the Luxembourg Court has landed some important...
View Article“Non-Existent”
Last Tuesday, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal delivered a ruling which makes the extent of the crisis of the rule of law in Poland unambiguously clear. And it shows how the gap with Europe is...
View ArticleKampf oder diplomatischer Ausgleich?
Der Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Europa wird auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen ausgetragen. Auch das Recht steht dabei nicht zurück. Mit seinem Urteil vom 5. Mai 2020 hat das BVerfG den EuGH mit harschen...
View ArticlePoland and Europe at a Critical Juncture. What has happened? What is...
Prologue. Living in dual and captured state Oh no, Poland again, you might think … and yet despite massive press coverage, important lessons and themes seem to get lost in the daily narration. In...
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The Exit Door
Is Poland on its way out of the EU? Claims abound that a „legal Polexit“ is imminent after the madness that the Polish „Constitutional Tribunal“ brought into the world yesterday. The institution...
View ArticleWer Karlsruhe mit Warschau gleichsetzt, irrt sich gewaltig
Im polnischen, partiell aber auch im deutschen Diskurs wird das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts vom 5.5.2020 zur partiellen Verfassungswidrigkeit des PSP-Programms der EZB als qualitativ...
View ArticleWhoever equates Karlsruhe to Warsaw is wildly mistaken
In the Polish, and to some extent also in the German public discourse, the ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court of 5 May 2020 on the partial unconstitutionality of the ECB’s PSP programme is...
View ArticleResisting Membership Fatalism
While we fully agree with the main thrust of the editorial ‘The Exit Door’ on Verfassungsblog last Friday, we would like to warn against its seemingly fatalistic mindset. Yes, a Polexit from the EU is...
View ArticleStatement of Retired Judges of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal
10 October 2021 On 7 October 2021, the Constitutional Tribunal issued a judgment in case K 3/21 concerning the place of EU law in the Polish legal order. The judgment caused great public concern due to...
View ArticleSealed, Stamped and Delivered
On October 12, 2021, the judgement K 3/21 of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of 7 October 2021 was published in Poland’s official gazette, the Dziennik Ustaw (here). The published judgement...
View ArticleResolution No. 04/2021
The Committee on Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, being a democratic representative of scientists conducting research in the field of legal science, declares that the ruling of the...
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After the Explosion
I have been thinking of Chernobyl a lot in the last few days since 7 October 2021. Something big has blown up. What exactly? We don’t know yet, but in any case it was more than just a piece of the...
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Nach der Explosion
Ich musste in den letzten Tagen seit dem 7. Oktober 2021 oft an Tschernobyl denken. Da ist etwas Großes in die Luft geflogen. Was genau? Wir wissen es noch nicht, aber es war jedenfalls mehr als nur...
View ArticleThis Was Not Just Another Ultra Vires Judgment!
A few days ago, 27 retired judges of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal have issued a statement concerning the judgment K 3/21 of 7 October 2021. We are both among its signatories. With this article,...
View ArticleEin Ausschluss aus der EU ist als Ultima-Ratio-Maßnahme möglich
Am 7. Oktober 2021 hat das polnische Verfassungsgericht eine Entscheidung erlassen, die sich nur mit dem Zünden einer Bombe vergleichen lässt.1)Polnisches Verfassungsgericht, Entscheidung vom 7....
View ArticleExclusion from the EU is Possible as a Last Resort
On 7 October 2021, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal issued a decision that can only be compared to setting off a bomb.1)Polish Constitutional Court, Decision of 7 October 2021, No. K 3/21. The...
View ArticleThe Honest (though Embarrassing) Coming-out of the Polish Constitutional...
(1) In its judgment K 6/21 (24.11.2021), the Polish Constitutional Tribunal declared Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights to be unconstitutional: (a) „to the extent that the term...
View ArticleFrom Romania with Love
The CJEU judgment of 21 December 2021 (C-357/19 and others, Euro Box Promotion) explicitly extended the Union’s requirement of judicial independence to constitutional courts for the first time. The...
View ArticleStatement by Retired Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal on the the...
Retired judges of the Constitutional Tribunal state that the judgment in question is another scandalous example of jurisprudence violating the Constitution. Challenging Article 6 of the ECHR for the...
View ArticleExtinguishing the Court
Piero Calamandrei, great Italian legal scholar and politician, said on January 14, 1947: “If, during the period when fascism assaulted the Italian State, a rigid Constitution had been in force, fascism...
View Article7 Years Later: Poland as a Legal Black Hole
7 years after the activation of the pre-Article 7 procedure in January 2016, Poland has become a “legal black hole”, to borrow the expression used as a warning by Advocate General Bobek in a case...
View ArticleTo Void or Not To Void
One of the most critical challenges in the process of restoring the rule of law in Poland after the period of ‘Law and Justice’ rule will be regulating the situation in the Constitutional Tribunal....
View ArticleReviving a Corpse
On a cold night of 25 November 2015, several activists and lawyers spontaneously gathered in front of the Polish Parliament to protest against the ongoing dismantling of the independence of the nearby...
View ArticleRestoration of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal as Reading the Constitution...
The question of how to restore the fallen and degenerated body that once was the Polish Constitutional Tribunal is finally to make its way to the Parliament this week. The stakes are clear: If we get...
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Polish(ing) Broken Tribunal
No one in Poland has ever doubted that cleaning up after the Law and Justice Party’s (PiS) eight years (2015-2023) in power will be an easy task. After almost three months in power, the new governing...
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