Disciplinary charges against Małgorzata Manowska. Head of Iustiiti: It is difficult to count on a sensible decision. The Supreme Court was concreted with the participation of the president

The first president of the Supreme Court Małgorzata Manowskaas “Gazeta Wyborcza” reported on Saturday, she faced disciplinary charges. The disciplinary spokesman for the Supreme Court, Andrzej Tomczyk, told the newspaper that “on February 26, he initiated disciplinary proceedings and charged Manowska with a disciplinary offense.” “The first president committed an obvious and flagrant breach of the law and violated the dignity of the office of a judge,” we read.

The head of the Association of Polish Judges “Iustitia”, Krystian Markiewicz, referring to this issue of disciplinary charges on Sunday in “Wzostasz i weekend” on TVN24, said that “it is difficult, given the current shape of the Supreme Court, to wait for some sensible conclusion.”

– What is probably much more important is that a crime was also reported. The judges of the Supreme Court submitted such a notification in March. As far as I know, the case finally reached the prosecutor's office in June and we are waiting for any move from the prosecutor's office – he added.

– I hope that it will be like in the case of members of the neo-National Council of the Judiciary, where proceedings have finally been initiated against judges who sit illegally in the neo-National Council of the Judiciary – he said.

READ MORE: “Excess of privileges”. The prosecutor's office initiates an investigation into judges members of the neo-National Council of the Judiciary

When asked why he believed that in the current arrangement in the Supreme Court there was no chance for a sensible decision, Markiewicz replied that “the Supreme Court was, one could say, completely concreted with the active participation of the president.”

– Most people who judge in the Supreme Court are neo-judges. Most presidents, almost all of them, in the Supreme Court are neo-judges. So apart from the disciplinary spokesman, who miraculously survived in the Supreme Court and initiated disciplinary proceedings against Judge Manowska, there is no one who would not be vassalized when it comes to official positions – noted the president of Iustitia.

As he added, “in such a configuration, it is difficult to count on any decision that would be expected in connection with the activities of Mrs. Manowska, who is the first person in the Supreme Court trial.” – In my opinion, it is illegal to hold this position – said Markiewicz.

He stressed, however, that “finally initiating these proceedings is very important and symbolic.”

– We are all waiting for this dark period of the Polish judiciary and justice system to be brought to justice and finally some such signals are emerging, whether from the judge, the disciplinary spokesman of the Supreme Court, or the information that I mentioned, that it was decided to provide ministry to the prosecutor's office a notification signed by many judges of the Supreme Court – he said.

“Wyborcza” wrote on Saturday that the allegation – as explained by the Supreme Court's disciplinary spokesman – “concerns the fact that from September 30, 2021 to July 14, 2022, the first president of the Supreme Court, presiding over the meetings of the Supreme Court's College, after holding meetings in person or with using electronic means and determining the lack of a quorum to adopt resolutions (due to the absence of Supreme Court judges), exceeding its powers, ordered written voting by circulation, disregarding the stated inability of the College to adopt resolutions.

As added, Manowska counted the failure to cast votes by members of the body as abstaining votes. “In this way, Małgorzata Manowska, according to the disciplinary spokesman, certified an untruth as to the fact that resolutions were adopted by a simple majority of votes and at the same time acted to the detriment of the public interest, distorting the result of the vote,” we read.