The coalition of Polish NGOs which runs the Civic Monitoring of Candidates of Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal appealed to the Members of Parliament to designate candidates for judges. By 2 December 2010 the term of four judges to hold the office of Constitutional Tribunal’s judges will have expired. This relates to: Profesor Marian Grzybowski, Profesor Marek Mazurkiewicz, Profesor Mirosław Wyrzykowski and Bohdan Zdziennickiego, Phd.
The Constitutional Tribunal is the key institution for Polish democracy to protect rights and freedoms of citizens. The process of selection of the judges should be transparent. It should also give the opportunity to express opinions and comments to different communities, including NGOs and lawyers in an open public debate. There is a great social interest in the election, as demonstrated by, inter alia, various statements of lawyers (e.g. the one of Polish Academy of Science, Deans of Faculties of Law, Allerhand’s Institute) and publications in Polish press dedicated to the issue of upcoming elections of judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Similarly to the practice of the past few years (since 2006), the Civic Monitoring of Candidates of Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal will organize public meetings and debates with participation of candidates for judges as well as social organizations, legal practitioners and media. The coalition will gather and analyze information about the candidates and publish the so-called “candidates’ profiles” developed on the basis of the publicly available materials (CV, academic achievements, public speeches, legal opinions, etc.) and questionnaires filled by the candidates.
The Speaker of the Sejm has declared the will to hold consultations with lawyers and social organizations during the above-mentioned elections. Therefore, the NGOs coalition is convinced that this time the Presidium of the Sejm will exercise its right to designate candidates for judges. The coalition also hopes that the candidates that will be selected would be those indicated by the social organizations and legal practitioners. Furthermore, the coalition hopes that the candidates will be designated within time sufficient enough to allow a serious debate in this respect.
On 26 November 2010 Sejm [the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament] chose three judges of the Constitutional Tribunal. Professor Piotr Tuleja, professor Marek Zubik and Stanislas Rymar were elected. One position is still vacant. The deadline for presenting candidates is 7 December 2010.
The Coalition of Polish NGOs which runs the Civic Monitoring of Candidates for Judges prepared profiles of all candidates for the positions of judge at the Constitutional Tribunal, organized a debate with candidates (four candidates out of six participated) and commented on the parliamentary process of the selection of judges.
The Coalition pointed out many flaws of the process of the selection of judges. The most important problems were: presentation of candidates by MPs at the very last moment, low number of candidates and giving opinion on candidates by the Parliamentary Commission on Justice and Human Rights en bloc instead of voting on each candidate individually.
One of the candidates (professor Boguslaw Banaszak) lost support of MPs after media revealed that there is a pending lawsuit against him concerning plagiarism. In answering the questionnaire prepared by the Coalition this candidate had concealed this fact which was pointed out in the media.
More information on Civic Monitoring of Candidates of Judges of the Constitutional Tribunal available at: www.monitoringsedziow.org.pl
