The judiciary, just like the legislative and executive, is not a superpower standing on its own beyond any control and it cannot freely interfere in the operations of other state organs - President Andrzej Duda wrote in a letter to the General Assembly of Judges of the Supreme Administrative Court.
On Monday, the General Assembly of Judges of the Supreme Administrative Court unanimously adopted a report on the court's activity in 2018. It was presented by the court's president Marek Zirk-Sadowski. The General Assembly was attended by the deputy chief of President's Chancellery Paweł Mucha who read out President Andrzej Duda's letter to the judges.
The president reminded in the letter that beside the ongoing celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Poland regaining its independence, the current year also marks other important events such as: 450th anniversary of signing the Lublin Union, 30th anniversary of June 4, 1989 elections, as well as 20th anniversary of Poland's joining in the NATO and 15th of joining the European Union.
"All anniversaries are a chance to stress the importance of the everlasting and inspiring idea of Polish liberty and independence, as well as our own tradition of law, state and their Western, strictly European roots," he wrote. "It's also a chance to underscore our attachment to the rule of law, embedded in the context of consistent axiomatic system, as well as functional legal system. History proves that appropriately understood rule of law is the best remedy for anomie in social life, as well as for anarchization of the state or for any other tendencies of undemocratic, authoritarian nature, based on law of strenght and not strenght of the law," the letter reads.
In the letter, Duda underscored that the president, as the highest representative of the Republic, "entrusts through his prerogative a part of the empire reponsible for delivering justice". He added that the act of appointing a judge "is not controled by the judiciary because one cannot be the judge in their own case and that's how any attempt by the judiciary to interfere in the president's prerogative should be interpreted".
"A judge is anyone that has been appointedto fulfil this noble role by the president who acts on the request of the KRS. The people, who by democratic vote entitle the president with their trust, also grant him with trust in the field of the judiciary," Andrzej Duda wrote. He added that: "any attempts to interfere in the president's prerogative cannot be perceived other than attempts to shake the system of checks and balances, fundamental for all mature democracies". "A system which also determines the role of the judiciary and in which the president's role as an arbiter and guarantor of continuity of state rule seems particularly important," the president added.
"The judiciary, just like the legislative and executive, is not a superpower standing on its own beyond any control and it cannot freely interfere in the operations of other state organs," the president underscored in his letter.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: STEPHANIE LECOCQ/PAP