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Selecting Judges in Poland and Germany: Challenges to the Rule of law in Europe and Propositions for a new Approach to Judicial Legitimacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Anne Sanders  and
Luc von Danwitz

Abstract

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The recent reforms of the Polish Judiciary have sparked a lively debate in Europe on the importance of judicial independence. This Article deals with the new Polish system of selecting and appointing judges and critically assesses it in the light of European standards for judicial appointments. It then compares the new Polish system to the German system of selecting judges, which has been advanced as a point of reference for the reform by the Polish government. Finally, the Article reconsiders and challenges some of the established concepts of German constitutional law as to the selection of judges and judicial legitimacy.

The Article was closed on September 2, 2017 and accepted for publication. Subsequent developments could be included until March 15, 2018. The authors would like to thank Judge Thomas Guddat and the Deutsch-Polnische Richtervereinigung (Association of German and Polish Judges) for providing valuable details on the reforms in Poland.

Type
The rule of law, constitutionalism and the judiciary
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , 01 July 2018 , pp. 769 - 816
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by German Law Journal, Inc. 

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171 See Consultative Council of European Judges, Opinion 1 para. 37 (2001).Google Scholar

172 See Bundesamt für Justiz [Federal Office for Justice], Zahl der Richter, Richterinnen, Staatsanwälte, Staatsanwältinnen und Vertreter, Vertreterinnen des öffentlichen Interesses in der Rechtspflege der Bundesrepublik Deutschland am 31. Dezember 2014 (Number of judges, judges, prosecutors, public prosecutors, representatives of the public interest in the administration of justice of the Federal Republic of Germany on 31 December 2014) (Jan. 28, 2016), https://www.bundesjustizamt.de/DE/SharedDocs/Publikationen/Justizstatistik/Gesamtstatistik.pdf;jsessionid=AA55DE94411975B1219C8B4036755B4B.2_cid377?__blob=publicationFile&v=7.Google Scholar

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175 See id., at para. 32.Google Scholar

176 See id., at para. 35.Google Scholar

177 See Oberverwaltungsgericht für das Land Nordrhein-Westfalen [Higher Regional Administrative Court for North Rhine Westphalia] June 21, 2017, 1 B 232/17 for a recent decision of this kind.Google Scholar

178 See Judgment of Sept. 20, 2016, at para. 28; Classen, supra note 163, at 1016.Google Scholar

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183 See Anna von Notz, Das Pippi-Langstrumpf-Prinzip: Ich mach' mir mein Verfassungsgericht (The Pippi Longstocking Principle: I make my constitutional court), Junge Wissenschaft (Apr. 15, 2014), http://www.juwiss.de/de/53-2014/.Google Scholar

184 According to Article 19 TEU, the Judges and Advocates General of the CJEU and the General Court are appointed for a renewable 6-year term.Google Scholar

185 See Dumbrovsky, Tomas, The European Court of Justice after the Eastern Enlargement: An Emerging Inner Circle of Judges, in Boston 2011 EUSA Conference Papers 13 (Mar. 1, 2013), http://www.mwpweb.eu/TomasDumbrovsky/publication_2081.html.Google Scholar

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188 See also Klaus Gärditz & Maximillian Steinbeis, Die meisten Dinge die in Polen und Ungarn gelaufen sind könnten ohne weiteres auch hier passieren (Most things that happened in Poland and Hungary could easily happen here), VerfassungsBlog.de (Feb. 22, 2018), https://verfassungsblog.de/die-meisten-dinge-die-in-polen-und-ungarn-gelaufen-sind-koennten-ohne-weiteres-hier-auch-passieren/.Google Scholar

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190 See CCJE, supra note 68, at para. 12.Google Scholar

191 Cf. Koen Lenaerts, How the ECJ Thinks, 36 Fordham Int'l L. J. 1302, 1306 (2013).Google Scholar

192 See CCJE, supra note 68, at para. 14ff (describing these concepts of judicial legitimacy first).Google Scholar

193 See id., at para. 14.Google Scholar

194 See id. at para. 14.Google Scholar

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196 See Wittreck, supra note 150, at 135ff for the legitimate troubles supposedly caused in this regard by the development of law by judges through case-law.Google Scholar

197 In this sense, see Heusch, Article 97, in Grundgesetz: GG para. 15 (Hans Hofmann et al. eds., 13th ed. 2014).Google Scholar

198 Special election systems, however, are in place in Switzerland.Google Scholar

199 See C-SPAN/PSB Supreme Court Survey 2017, C-SPAN (Mar. 17, 2017), https://www.c-span.org/scotussurvey2017/.Google Scholar

200 See Confidence in Institutions, Gallup (June 1–5 2016), http://www.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx%5D.Google Scholar

201 See Toobin, Jeffrey, The Oath: The Obama White House and The Supreme Court 226–29 (2012) for further anecdotal evidence.Google Scholar

202 For example, Justice Elena Kagan received only five votes from Republican senators, while the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch provoked the Republican majority to abolish the possibility for the opposition to filibuster a Supreme Court confirmation. In the end, Gorsuch was confirmed with a vote of 54:45 and only three democratic senators voted to confirm him.Google Scholar

203 See Consultative Council of European Judges, opinion 17 at para. 31ff (2014).Google Scholar

204 See Consultative Council of European Judges, opinion 3 at para. 22 (2002).Google Scholar

205 See Consultative Council of European Judges, supra note 68, at para. 17–19.Google Scholar

206 Steffen Detterbeck, Article 97 Unabhängigkeit der Richter, in Sachs Grundgesetz pt. 1 (7th ed. 2014).Google Scholar

207 See Consultative Council of European Judges, supra note 68, at para. 18.Google Scholar

208 See also Lenaerts, supra note 191, at 1306.Google Scholar

209 Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).Google Scholar

210 Case C-402/05 P, Kadi v. Council of the European Union, Opinion of Advocate General Poiares Maduro para. 45.Google Scholar

211 See Consultative Council of European Judges, supra note 68, at para. 20.Google Scholar

212 The Consultative Council of European Judges, for example, differentiates between judicial, explanatory, and criminal accountability: See Consultative Council of European Judges, supra note 68, at para. 26–33.Google Scholar

213 See Case C-23/15 P, Comm'n v. Breyer, Opinion of Advocate General Bobek para. 77–145, for an interesting, though maybe impractical, initiative to render documents at the European Court of Justice more accessible.Google Scholar

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215 See Section E. subsection II of this Article.Google Scholar

216 See Commission, European, How Much do you Trust the Judiciary or the German Legal System?, TNS Infratest for the European Comm'n (Nov. 5–11, 2016), https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/153813/umfrage/allgemeines-vertrauen-in-die-justiz-und-das-rechtssystem/.Google Scholar

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222 See Klaus Ferdinand Gärditz, Reformbedarf bei der Bundesrichterwahl?, Zeitschrift für Beamtenrecht 325, 326 (2015).Google Scholar

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227 See id., at para. 156.Google Scholar

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229 See Huster & Rux, supra note 157, at para. 94.Google Scholar

230 See generally Consultative Council of European Judges, opinion 17 (2014).Google Scholar

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232 Id., para. 35.Google Scholar

233 See Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfGE] [Federal Constitutional Court] 119 BVerfGE 331, para. 22.Google Scholar

234 See Henri de Waele, Not quite the Bed that Procrustes Built, in Selecting Europe's Judges 28f (M. Bobek ed., 2015).Google Scholar

235 See Jean Marc Sauvé, Selecting the European Union's Judges, in Selecting Europe's Judges 79 (M. Bobek ed., 2015).Google Scholar

236 See id. at 83. After an unfavorable opinion issued by the Article 255 Panel—which occurred in a remarkable 20% of cases for candidatures for a first term of office—no appointment ensued.Google Scholar

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238 See Darbyshire, Penny, Sitting in Judgment 95ff (2011) for experiences with the British Judicial Appointment Committee; see Report of the Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments, Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada, http://www.FJA-CMF.GC.CA/scc-CSC/establishment-creation-eng.html for the Independent Advisory Board for the Supreme Court of Canada Judicial Appointments.Google Scholar