Constitutional Tribunal judges have not received their salaries for February, Krystyna Pawłowicz, a member of the Constitutional Tribunal, told PAP. According to Pawłowicz, this is the first such situation, the salaries for January have been paid.
The budget act for 2025 reduced funds for the Constitutional Tribunal and the National Council of the Judiciary; the cuts included payments to employees of the Constitutional Tribunal and the National Council of the Judiciary. Last year, the head of the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers, Maciej Berek, speaking about the draft budget, argued that financing entities whose legality had been questioned by the rulings of international tribunals was not justified.
“We do not receive remuneration,” Pawłowicz told PAP. Asked since when the judges have not been paid remuneration, she replied that they did not receive it for the first time in February.
The wPolityce.pl portal, which also submitted questions to the Tribunal on this matter, received a response that “the arrears of the State Treasury towards the Constitutional Tribunal judges currently amount to one month's salary (the remuneration of the Constitutional Tribunal judges for February)”. “Some of the Constitutional Tribunal judges have already asked the President of the Constitutional Tribunal to pay the arrears of salary by way of a pre-trial demand for payment” – the portal reported.
Pawłowicz told PAP that the president of the Constitutional Tribunal is taking action in this matter. “However, this is such a shocking attack on Poland, on Polish institutions and constitutional bodies, on an independent Tribunal and independent judges by the Polish authorities, that there are no words,” Pawłowicz assessed.
She stressed that the constitution guarantees that judges of the Constitutional Tribunal “are provided with working conditions and remuneration”. In her opinion, “this is an open violation of the constitution and state violence”. “There is criminal liability for this”, she stated.
“This government identifies the Constitutional Tribunal with the opposition, even though we were legally elected by the Sejm,” she said.
On January 17, President Andrzej Duda signed the budget act, but referred some of its provisions to the Constitutional Tribunal for subsequent review. Minister in the Chancellery of the President Małgorzata Paprocka explained at the time that – in the president's opinion – such major changes in the budgets of the National Council of the Judiciary and the Constitutional Tribunal should be subject to review by the Constitutional Tribunal.
The Constitutional Tribunal in its current form is criticized by the current authorities and some lawyers, who, citing judgments of, among others, the ECtHR and the CJEU, assess that it is a politicized institution. In connection with this, on March 6 last year, the Sejm adopted a resolution on eliminating the effects of the constitutional crisis of 2015-2023, in which it stated that “taking into account in the activities of a public authority body decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal issued in violation of the law may be considered a violation of the principle of legalism by these bodies”. The Sejm also recognized, among other things, that Jarosław Wyrembak and Justyn Piskorski, currently adjudicating in the Constitutional Tribunal, are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal.
Since the adoption of this resolution by the Sejm, the Constitutional Tribunal's judgments have not been published in the Journal of Laws. (PAP)
Michał Torz (PAP)
(We plan to continue this topic)
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