Waiting for a Decision
Things did not go according to plan on Friday as the Sejm failed to appoint a new Constitutional Tribunal judge. The vote was adjourned to allow more time to properly review the candidates. The motion to adjourn was put forward by the head of the Sejm Justice Committee, Ryszard Kalisz of SLD on the basis of a statement issued on Thursday by the Civic Monitoring of Candidates for Judges (Obywatelski Monitoring Kandydatów na Sędziów) – a coalition of 3 non-governmental organizations. The coalition demanded the adjournment as “the selection procedure did not meet the standards that are called for when one of the most important public offices is about to be filled”. It seems that the candidates were selected at the last minute which made it impossible for the selection process to be carried out according to procedure. There are two candidates for the vacancy – Krystyna Pawłowicz supported by PiS and Krzysztof Barczyk, backed by PO. Both declined “civic monitoring” by not agreeing to fill out a form and later read out the replies publicly. Pawłowicz claimed that it was not mandatory to do so while Barczyk agreed at first but later refused and presented a sick note instead. The Sejm’s decision to postpone the vote was partly caused by the fact that there are some doubts about whether Barczyk meets the criteria for the position. In addition, two former chief judges of the Tribunal deny their support for the PO-backed candidate who claimed that judges Zoll and Stępień were in favour of him becoming part of the Tribunal.
Gazeta Wyborcza
