European court rules suspension of Polish judge who criticized government is against EU law

Europe’s top court ruled on Thursday that the suspension in Poland of a judge who had criticized the government is against the EU’s law and he should be returned to the bench with full pay.

The decision was the latest in a string of European Union decisions ordering Poland’s right-wing government to roll back changes to the judiciary that the EU says are in violation of the rule of law.

Judge Igor Tuleya was suspended in 2020 and had his pay reduced by a judicial disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court, a body created and controlled by the government. The body had been also used against other judges who had defended judicial independence under the Law and Justice party government, which has been in power since 2015.

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Tuleya reacted by saying that Thursday’s ruling was “some sort of success and a nice surprise.”

It was a “battle won, but the war for the rule of law — against the declarations of the ruling party members — is still going on,” he said. “The independence of courts and of judges is still being destroyed.”

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Tuleya had criticized the government’s actions and had turned to European courts for opinions on the disciplinary actions against him. The Polish disciplinary chamber has since been discontinued because the EU said it violated democratic rules.

That fight is part of a larger rule-of-law dispute that’s costing Poland big money for ignoring the EU’s rulings for judicial independence. Last month, the bloc’s high court suspended millions of euros from Poland, adding to some half a billion euros of previous fines.

Tuleya has not returned to work because other judiciary bodies controlled by the government have been blocking his reinstatement.

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland had not treated Tuleya in accordance with the law and ordered the government to pay him 36,000 euro ($40,000) in redress.