Articles for tag: Enforcement, Europäische Kommission, muzzle law

Contesting the Ultimate Leverage to Enforce EU Law

By now it has become clear that Poland is not willing to discharge the definitive judicial penalties of over EUR 600 million which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ordered it to pay for failing to observe coercive interim measures. When the Commission announced it would proceed to set off the outstanding amounts against money due to Poland from the EU budget, the Polish government vowed to fight the recovery ‘with all legal means’. Recently, Poland has put its money where its mouth is. It has brought four cases before the General Court to challenge the recovery. These actions have thus far evaded closer scrutiny in the legal blogosphere. However, they contain a significant challenge to the EU’s powers to enforce judicial penalties against Member States, namely as regards recovery by offsetting. As the cases raise issues which may have repercussions beyond these proceedings, this post casts a closer look at Poland’s applications and analyses their potential broader significance.

12. Juli 2023

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Poland’s Extended Disciplinary System

The judgement of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on June 5, 2023 (C-204/21) has added a new chapter to the rule of law crisis in Poland. The outcome was largely expected given the well-established jurisdiction of the ECJ on matters of the rule of law. However, a close reading of the judgment demonstrates that it recognizes the more insidious ways in which Poland has undermined judicial independence. Specifically, I argue that the ECJ's ruling paves the way for a legal response to the suppression of judicial independence through public intimidation and stigmatization of judges.

2. Juli 2023

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Doing Justice to Poland’s Muzzle Law

On 5 June 2023, the Court of Justice issued its fourth infringement judgment in relation to yet another Polish piece of legislation – informally known as the muzzle law – which aimed to dissuade or punish Polish judges for applying and upholding EU rule of law requirements. As anyone with any basic understanding of EU law could have predicted, the law rushed into force by Poland’s ruling coalition in December 2019 did not survive judicial scrutiny in Luxembourg. As long as the Commission fails to demand full compliance with CJEU case law and decisively address the issue of judicial usurpers, however, just chipping away at the arbitrary disciplinary changes Polish authorities have made will always fail to solve Poland’s fundamental and systemic issues.

11. Juni 2023

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Protecting Polish Judges from Political Control

After many years of judicial “reforms”, Kaczyński’s Poland may soon become the EU’s second authoritarian Member State, even as the European Court of Justice increasingly attempted to deal with different aspects of Kaczyński’s multi-pronged attacks on judicial independence. In Case C-791/19, the found the new disciplinary regime for Polish judges to be incompatible with EU law while in Case C-204/21 R, the Vice-President of the ECJ ordered the immediate suspension of the application of the legislative provisions governing the jurisdiction of the infamous “Disciplinary Chamber”.

20. Juli 2021

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