No quorum in the Supreme Court. The key attitude of the "old" judges

And the President of the Supreme Court convened for Tuesday at 14 extraordinary General Assembly of Judges of the Supreme Court to - as he announced - take a position on the situation regarding the Constitutional Tribunal.

Earlier before The 14th group of 28 Supreme Court judges declared that they would not participate in this Assembly. Kapiński informed at the afternoon briefing that the position related to the situation of the Constitutional Tribunal had been taken by the Supreme Court College and he planned that "the General Assembly will also express its opinion on this matter."

Unfortunately, due to the attitude of some judges - the so-called, as some say, old judges, appointed before 2017 - there was no quorum required for the General Assembly to adopt a resolution, Kapiński said. He added that there was no quorum in the Civil Chamber and the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court.

The First President of the Supreme Court informed that therefore the gathered Supreme Court judges, 55 people, supported the resolution of the Supreme Court Collegium.

The Supreme Court's website contains a resolution of the Supreme Court Council expressing "firm opposition to actions that undermine the constitutional principles of the functioning of the judiciary." In particular, the dismissal of the President of the Constitutional Tribunal, Bogdan Święczkowski, was pointed out; According to the College, the attempt to remove him from work undermines the constitution.

The resolution was published on the Supreme Court's website at the same time as the General Assembly of Supreme Court judges convened by the First President of the Supreme Court, Zbigniew Kapiński, began on Tuesday afternoon.

"The College of the Supreme Court expresses its firm opposition to actions that undermine the constitutional principles of the functioning of the judiciary, in particular by removing persons holding functions in its bodies from exercising their powers, which occurred without the required legal basis and bypassing statutory procedures," we read in the resolution of the Supreme Court College.

As assessed, the attempt to remove the President of the Constitutional Tribunal from work violates Art. 7 of the constitution. Moreover, as we read, appointing a judge with the longest seniority as the head of the Constitutional Tribunal's work is only possible when there is a vacancy in the positions of the president and vice-president of the Constitutional Tribunal, and such a condition - as we read - did not occur. Currently, as stated, the performance of activities falling within the competence of the President of the Constitutional Tribunal has actually been entrusted to an unauthorized person.

It was added that "in the opinion of the College of the Supreme Court, the possible issuance of decisions with the participation of persons elected by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland to the position of judge of the Constitutional Tribunal, who did not take an oath before the President of the Republic of Poland taking the oath, and whose legal status has not been sufficiently clarified, raises a serious risk of recognizing that such actions do not constitute judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal."