Poland's Prime Minister Says Polish High Court Justices Could Be Charged
Warsaw, Poland 11 May, 2007 The Polish Government has increased its criticism of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal as the Government tries to prevent the Court from rendering a ruling before 15 May on the new Lustration Law. In a what could be considered a veiled threat, Prime Minister Kaczynski even said that every one of the Justices could be charged with something.
The Polish Government has been attacking Constitutional Tribunal Justices on various grounds to try to reduce the number of Justices to below the number required to enable the Tribunal to render a judgement.
First it proffered a motion to remove four Justices because they were said to have shown bias by their out of Court statements. That motion was denied.
Secondly two Justices were said to have had contact with the secret services and a motion to remove those two Justices was sustained. See Polish Government Accuses Polish Constitutional Tribunals Of Being Secret Service Collaborators
Third, the Prime Minister made comment that every one of the Justices could be charged with something. He qualified his comments by saying that he did not intend to charge them and that he was just pointing out that it could be done.
Finally, the Prime Minister said that the Justices should not rule on the Lustration Law until after each of them has gone through the lustration process.
Why the Government is so afraid of the Court Ruling is unclear. It is raising questions in political as well as public circles.
Civic Platform (PO) leader Donald Tusk said "I don't know why the Law and Justice (PiS) party has adopted this policy. The only explanation for it seems to be its fear of opening the archives. I don't know what the PiS is so afraid of."
The Government is not holding back on making accusations against the Judges based on anything it can find.
Evidence used to remove one of the judges consisted of a copy of his passport found in a secret service file.
The second judge had more in his file. The file contained as statement made by him prior to a trip to France that he did not intend to cooperate. When he returned from France, his file showed he made innocuous statements about what he did in France. The agent that interviewed him noted in the file that he was a useless source of information.
Not presented to the Court when the motion to remove was made, was the fact that the Secret Services categorized the "useless source" as not an informer.
It seems odd to some that these bits of paper found in files were sufficient to have the Justices removed from considering a case. But a past Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Andrzej Zoll, opined that the case is very important and that removing the Justices was the prudent thing to do to prevent any later criticism. http://www.zw.com.pl/zw2/index.jsp?place=Lead04&news_cat_id=16&news_id=157860&layout=1&forum_id=33842&page=text">Zoll: optymalna decyzja prezesa Trybunalu
As it is, the Justice whose file contained a copy of his passport will have to hire his own lawyer and stand before the Lustration Court and prove that he did not cooperate with the secret services as will the second whose file contains a statement that he was useless.
Kaczynski has not revealed what bits of paper or other evidence there is that could be used to charge the other justices.
But he says that they should go before the Lustration Court anyway before they rule on the Lustration Law.
That would subject them to a process that they might later find unconstitutional and would delay the ruling on the law for an extended period.
