Moreover, the Advocate-General noted that the judges who asked the preliminary questions were not subject to the disciplinary proceedings themselves. He clearly pointed that the referring courts’ concerns are purely subjective, and were not corroborated by the launching of any disciplinary proceedings, and remain hypothetical.

The proposed decision is in line with the position of the Polish government taken in these proceedings.

The prejudicial requests in cases no. C-558/18 and C-563/18 were filed with the CJEU by the District Courts in Lodz and Warsaw (judges Ewa Maciejewska and Igor Tuleya). In both cases, the questions referred were specifically intended to obtain the Court’s opinion on whether the principles of disciplinary proceedings against judges, as part of the justice system reform, guarantee sufficient judicial independence, and as a consequence do not violate the principle of effective legal protection in the fields covered by EU law.

The Advocate-General’s opinion reveals that the questions asked have no link to any cases heard by the referring courts but were intended to obtain from the Court an advisory opinion on general or hypothetical issues. The Advocate-General underlined that the Court cannot issue such an opinion in the preliminary procedure.

Polish government hopes that the Court, whose ruling is to be delivered within the next few months, will share the Advocate-General’s conclusions.

 

MFA Press Office

Photo: MFA