In a follow up assessment on corruption, the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) found that Poland has implemented only seven of 16 recommendations and only one of six recommendations for a more recent procedure.

The very low level of compliance with recommendations, what GRECO terms “globally unsatisfactory”, prompted it to ask the head of the Polish delegation to provide a report on the progress in implementing the pending recommendations by 31 December 2020.

GRECO did welcome the fact that provisions on early retirement of Supreme Court judges and the possibility to have their tenure prolonged by the President were repealed, something GRECO had considered a pressing concern.

It was also pleased that the Supreme Court judges who had retired under the provisions of the 2017 amendments to the law on the Supreme Court have been reinstated.

Nevertheless, measures taken to address any of the other recommendations remain “insufficient”. A government analysis of the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court falls short in several respects of an actual reconsideration of the establishment of the disciplinary chamber and extraordinary appeals chamber at the Supreme Court, GRECO found.

GRECO took note of the allegations of disciplinary proceedings being misused to exert pressure on judges for submitting requests for preliminary rulings to the Court of Justice of the European Union, for certain politically undesired rulings, for criticism of the government’s judicial reforms, or for being present at events where such criticism was expressed.

It said the current system – with the strong involvement of the executive – leaves judges increasingly vulnerable to political control.