10.15166/2499-8249/417
https://www.europeanpapers.eu/en/e-journal/defending-rule-law-reality-based-self-defense-new-polish-chapter
2499-8249
Jaremba, Urszula
Urszula
Jaremba
Utrecht University
Defending the Rule of Law or Reality Based Self-defense? A New Polish Chapter in the Story of Judicial Cooperation in the EU
European Papers (www.europeanpapers.eu)
2020
Polish courts
constitutional crisis
judiciary reforms
preliminary ruling procedure
judicial dialogue
rule of law
2020-12-15
Research Centre for European Law, Unitelma Sapienza - University of Rome
eng
Article
text/html
PDF
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2020 5(2), 851-869
I. Introduction. - II. Theoretical framework: why national judges participate in judicial dialogue with the CJEU. - III. Judiciary reforms in Poland 2017-2018: a brief overview. - IV. Preliminary questions as reaction of Polish courts to the judiciary reforms. - V. Defending the rule of law or reality based self-defense? - VI. Conclusions.
In the course of the last two years, the Polish courts frequently resorted to the procedure of preliminary ruling requesting the Court of Justice to qualify the Polish judiciary reforms introduced by the PIS-regime in the light of the principle of judicial independence, the rule of law and effective judicial protection. Against this backdrop, one could suggest that the issue regarding the use of the preliminary ruling mechanism by national courts and the reasons that incentivise the judges to engage in dialogue with the Court of Justice have gained a novel dimension. It is the aim of this Article to discuss the relevant preliminary questions referred by the Polish courts and place them in the context of various theoretical streams that aim at explaining the reasons and motivation behind national courts' participation in judicial dialogue with the Luxembourg Court.