The Supreme Court followed on from the Court of Cassation of the
Principality of Warsaw. It began its work in 1917 during the First World War as the Royal Imperial Supreme Court (Polish: Królewsko-Cesarski Sąd Najwyższy). Pomian-Srzednicki was appointed the first president of the court. After Poland gained full
independence in 1918, the Supreme Court was reformed by decree of 8 February 1919 and many judges who were considered to be loyal to the emperor were dismissed. At the turn of 1989 the Supreme Court was dissolved and re-established, but for the most part with the old judges from the communist era. In 2002 a new legal basis for the organisation of the Supreme Court was created, replacing the old one of 1984.
2017–2018 constitutional crisis In 2017 the Polish government passed a law which would have forced all Supreme Court judges into mandatory retirement apart from those granted an extension by the
Minister of Justice. The bill was passed in the
Polish Sejm and the
Senate however following mass protests against the bill it was ultimately vetoed by
President Andrzej Duda on 24 June 2017. A revised bill reduced mandatory retirement age of judges from 70 to 65. The bill was later signed by President Duda and came into force in July 2018. The law effectively retires 40% of the Supreme Court bench including the First President of the Supreme Court,
Malgorzata Gersdorf. Polish opposition parties, the
European Commission, the
European Parliament, the Polish Supreme Court, and the National Council of the Judiciary have claimed the law is unconstitutional because it violates the principles of the independence of the judiciary. In August 2018 the Supreme Court sent questions to the
European Court of Justice regarding the reforms. Under
Union law the court can prevent the
State law from coming into force if it undermines the
treaties of the European Union regarding judicial independence. On 17 December 2018, President Duda signed a law that will reinstate the judges who had been forced out of their jobs. On 8 April 2020 the EU Court of Justice ruled in a court case ("Commission v Poland") that the state of Poland "had failed to fulfil its obligations under
EU law". As a result, the Court granted "the Commission’s application for interim measures" which will likely be realised with
monetary fines.
CJEU suspension of the Disciplinary Chamber On 12 October 2020, Adam Tomczyński, a Judge from the Disciplinary Chamber, waived the immunity of
Beata Morawiec, judge of the District Court in
Kraków. Moments after that the
European Association of Judges expressed its unbreakable solidarity to Judge Beata Morawiec and to all independent Polish judges and once again stated that "
The Disciplinary Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court is not a court and cannot continue to act as one" and urges the European Commission to take all necessary measures to urgently reestablish the EU legal order in Poland. ==Function==