On 4 April, a coalition of three organizations – The Stefan Batory Foundation, The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and The Polish Section of the International Commission of Jurists appealed to the Polish Sejm and legal circles for transparency in electing judges for the Polish Constitutional Tribunal. (06-APR-07)

Written by Marta Lempicka/HRH Warsaw

Since October 2006, these organizations have been monitoring the election of Constitutional Tribunal judges, and as a result of this they have concluded that these elections have been carried out in an insufficiently transparent manner, hurriedly and without adequate verification of the candidates’ qualifications. In the opinion of the coalition organizations, the election procedures and the adopted practice have not allowed a real public debate regarding the proposed Candidates to be carried out and have not enabled a reliable assessment of their qualifications. This is not conducive to establishing the authority of the state and the Constitutional Tribunal.

In connection with the Lidia Bagiñska’s resignation from the post of CT judge and the upcoming election of her successor, the coalition of public organizations has made an appeal, in which it calls on:           
– the Sejm Presidium and the Parliamentary Clubs to propose candidates for the post of CT judge in advance in order to allow an honest parliamentary and public debate to be carried out and to guarantee the correct assessment of these candidates,
– individuals proposing candidates to publicly announce detailed information as to the candidate’s qualifications, with particular consideration for information significant with respect to the requirements laid down for CT judges (inter alia “high level of legal knowledge”, “flawless personality”),
– individuals proposing candidates as well as bodies of the Polish Sejm to include legal circles (e.g. legal corporations, law faculties, the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences) in the process of elections and candidate assessment,
– legal circles to actively participate in the public debate regarding elections of CT judges.  

In Poland, the Constitutional Tribunal is made up of 15 judges elected by the Sejm from among individuals distinguished by their legal knowledge. The judge’s term of office lasts 9 years and it is not possible for a CT judge to be reelected. The President and Vice-president of the Tribunal are appointed by the President from among the candidates proposed by the General Assembly of Judges of the CT.