15 candidates for judges of the National Council of the Judiciary. Two are from the opposition
This list was supported by 18 members of the committee, two were against. No one abstained. The Sejm plans to vote on this list on Friday.
Sejm clubs nominated a total of 17 candidates for the National Council of the Judiciary out of 60 proposed judges registered in the Sejm.
The groups of the ruling coalition nominated 15 judges selected during the assessment of candidates for the judicial part of the National Council of the Judiciary by the assemblies of judges in the country. These were people supported by some judges' associations, including: Iustitia and Themis: Edyta Jefimko, Dariusz Zawistowski, Monika Frąckowiak, Sławomir Cilulko, Wojciech Buchajczuk, Ewa Mierzejewska, Jarosław Łuczaj, Beata Donhöffner-Grodzicka, Agnieszka Kobylinska-Bortkiewicz, Magdalena Kierszka, Aleksandra Wrzesińska-Nowacka, Katarzyna Zawiślak, Ewa Żołnierczuk-Dec, Karolina Bąk-Lasota and Bartłomiej Starosta.
Of these judges, Sławomir Cilulko and Beata Donhöffner-Grodzicka were not ultimately included on the list established by the commission on Tuesday.
Two opposition candidates
This was due to the fact that the PiS and Konfederacja clubs each nominated one candidate for the National Council of the Judiciary. The PiS club appointed judge Łukasz Piebiak – former deputy minister of justice when Zbigniew Ziobro headed the ministry. The Confederation Club nominated Łukasz Zawadzki – a judge from Opole associated, like Piebiak, with the Lawyers for Poland Association.
Pursuant to the Act on the National Council of the Judiciary, the Sejm committee, when establishing a list of 15 candidates to be voted on by the Sejm, selects them from among the candidates proposed by the clubs, “provided that the list includes at least one candidate indicated by each parliamentary club.” Therefore, both Piebiak and Zawadzki were included on the list established by the commission.
Before the committee's vote, PiS MPs announced that they would not take part in it, justifying this with Tuesday's protective order of the Constitutional Tribunal ordering the Sejm to suspend the election of judges to the National Council of the Judiciary. The decision was made on the basis of a request submitted to the Constitutional Tribunal by PiS MPs in February. The proposal concerns the examination of the constitutionality of the provisions on the National Council of the Judiciary in terms of the possibility of reducing the role of the Sejm in this election to the function of a “notary” approving the decisions of the judicial community.
