The judicial hierarchy is that they are at the very top, making the final verdict, no matter what stupidity in that verdict was pronounced. Therefore, the highest concern of the system, of any system, should be that at the very top there should be judges who do not foolishly.
In the written argument of the decision of September 23 this year in case no II DO 52/20, the Supreme Court (or rather its new, “more legitimate” part) put forward a revolutionary thesis, according to which the judgments of the European Court of Justice (questioning the statutory principles of retiring judges) do not apply under the Polish legal system. The justification for this position was, and how revolutionary in the light of the functioning of the system, because the Supreme Court stated that these judgments were issued in response to a question from the Supreme Court that was put in the wrong composition. This is all nothing – because in this revolutionary decision the Supreme Court attributed to the question referred for a preliminary ruling the characteristic of “absolute nullity”.
This is where the system is being undermined. To make it even more interesting, the undermining of the system is clearly described by a dissenting opinion submitted by one of the judges – also derived from its “more legitimate” part. As is known, in civil proceedings, the court considers nullity ex officio, but only within the limits of the appeal. An unchallenged judgment is binding, even if it contained an alleged “nullity”. This is a historically and logically formed principle, otherwise everyone could freely judge the “nullity” of the judgment. Just as the “more legitimate” judge did.
The “less righteous” one, the one from the dissenting opinion, referred in his position not to the doctrine from 50 years ago, but, of course, to the view of the new Supreme Court President Mrs. Małgorzata Manowska.
An interesting and beautiful story – from which no completely unequivocal conclusion can be drawn. The history of judicial independence does not, and cannot, have any conclusion.
