On his first visit to Poland, Buschmann experienced a country in transition. The justice minister praises the new center-left government for its “courageous decisions.”
Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) was the first member of the federal government to travel to Poland to visit the new government in order to agree on closer cooperation in the future. On Tuesday he was welcomed in the capital Warsaw by his Polish counterpart Adam Bodnar.
Buschmann said: “The entire German government finds it very impressive how committed and determined Poland is returning to the center of Europe.” He agreed with Bodnar to “restart close cooperation” and discussed shared responsibility for Ukraine.
Poland is in a situation of upheaval. Bodnar said in an interview with “Zeit Online” this week that the Polish Constitutional Court was “used to enforce certain political goals.” He added: “I hope we can change that one day, but we’re not there yet.”
Poland’s center-left government with its Prime Minister Donald Tusk replaced the national-conservative PiS government in mid-December after eight years, which had repeatedly stirred up sentiment against Germany and the EU. Bodnar probably has the most difficult job in the center-left government. The 47-year-old constitutional lawyer, who was Poland’s Commissioner for Human Rights until 2021, is supposed to reverse the controversial judicial reform of the voted PiS government. Because of this reform, Poland was at loggerheads with the EU Commission for years.
Criticism from the ECJ
Bodnar has announced that the nomination of judges should be decoupled from politics again. The State Judicial Council is the body that nominates judges for vacant positions. In 2018, the PiS government introduced a reform according to which 15 of the 25 members of the State Judicial Council were appointed by parliament – previously judges had appointed the majority of the members. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) then criticized that there were considerable doubts about the independence of this body. According to the reform presented by Bodnar, the judges alone will in future decide on the composition of the State Judicial Council.
However, a corresponding law must first pass the two chambers of parliament and then be signed by President Andrzej Duda. This comes from the ranks of the PiS and could torpedo the project.
“I don’t want to comment on Polish domestic politics,” said Buschmann, when asked by journalists about the power struggle. The new government has “made many, very courageous decisions, with the absolute conviction of strengthening the rule of law.”
Source: Stern
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