The Tusk government managed to limit new nominations by the KRS, but now wants to take a sledgehammer to the system set up by PiS.
New court system
Żurek’s proposal would allow judges first appointed by the KRS to keep their jobs, but anyone who the KRS promoted would have to return to their old post, and they’d have to take part in recruitment contests to climb back up the hierarchy. KRS-appointed judges would be barred from the Supreme Court, where they currently account for about 60 percent of the justices, and that court’s top judge, Małgorzata Manowska, would be ousted.
The KRS itself will also undergo an overhaul when the terms of its members expire in April. Żurek aims to use legislation enacted by PiS for the Tusk-led parliamentary majority to vote in replacements. Unlike under PiS, the list of nominees will be prepared by other judges and then presented to parliament in a bid to end the politicization of the KRS.
Żurek said his reform proposal is an effort at a compromise. “There were calls to dismiss them all and make them face disciplinary proceedings. We’re not doing that,” he said. “There are different categories of these so-called neo-judges. KRS’s involvement in some nominations was very limited.”
But the reaction from PiS is fierce.
“Waldemar Żurek is a man who should spend many, many years in a state prison — and I believe he will,” PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński said Tuesday.
