The Senate supported the amendment to the act on the National Council of the Judiciary. Judge Igor Tuleya comments

On Thursday, the Senate supported the amendment to the Act on the National Council of the Judiciary, along with amendments, according to which all judges in Poland, and not the Sejm, will elect 15 judge members of the National Council of the Judiciary. The Senate also voted in favor of an amendment to allow candidates for the National Council of the Judiciary to be the so-called neo-judges, appointed after PiS changes in the Council in December 2017.

The amendments introduced by the Senate to the amendment were negatively assessed by Judge Igor Tuleya. On Friday, in Program 3 of Polish Radio, he said that this was showing the middle finger to citizens who protested in front of the courts.

– Just as I was afraid on October 15 that our dream revolution would turn into a dream revolution, now I have the feeling that the ending of this story is very banal. I would say that this revolution has been sold, Tuleya said.

– These amendments appeared during work in the Senate. I think it's a scandal, he said.

He pointed out that an important role in the neo-KRS was played by Tomasz Szmydt, a former judge who fled to Belarus and applied for asylum to the authorities in Minsk – he was the head of the Council's legal office. – It is completely incomprehensible that, on the one hand, the political class is right to hang the dogs on the Belarusian agent, and on the other hand, it endorses neo-judges who went through the neo-KRS and in fact equates them with judge (Waldemar) Żurek, (Piotr) Gąciarek and (Paweł ) Juszczyszyn. It is difficult to imagine that Judge Żurek would sit with some voluntary judge on the National Council of the Judiciary, Tuleya said.

In his opinion, “it was a mistake not to rely from the very beginning on projects prepared, for example, by the Iustitia community.”

Tuleya assessed that “the judges who took part in the procedures before the neo-National Council of the Judiciary do not have two basic attributes that a judge should have.” – Either they have no legal knowledge, because it was known from the very beginning that the neo-KRS has nothing to do with the constitutional body referred to in Article 187 of the Constitution, or worse, they do not have the attribute of impeccable character – he said.

According to him, “any concessions and political trade in these principles that we have been talking about for eight years are weak.” – This is not only spitting in the face of Żurek, Juszczyszyn and other judges involved in defending the rule of law. This is, above all, showing Lichocka's gesture to the citizens who have been in court for eight years – he said.

As he added, “Iustitia's ideas did not come from outer space.” – These are not constructions invented by some eggheads in the privacy of their offices. We based the drafts of these regulations on conversations with citizens, he emphasized.

Tuleya said he regretted that Adam Bodnar did not implement these laws, but expressed hope that judges' associations and the Minister of Justice “are playing for one goal.”