Case: Joined cases C-558/18 y C-563/18

Descriptors: Disciplinary regime applicable to judges and judicial independence

The Warsaw Regional Court and the Lódz Regional Court decide to file a preliminary ruling in the context of the resolution of a criminal and administrative case, respectively, in terms of the legal reform approved regarding the composition and functions of the National Council of the Judicial Power and the Minister of Justice. These courts consider that the Executive and Legislative powers have the capacity to eliminate judges whose resolutions are inopportune. Therefore, the ordinary judge is afraid to resolve the case in one sense and not another, since the sense of the ruling could entail the application of the disciplinary regime. Consequently, by means of the preliminary ruling, it is intended that the CJEU resolve the disagreement with the reform of the disciplinary regime applied to Polish judges with respect to the principle of judicial independence enshrined in article 19. 1 TEU.

The Court ends by ruling the inadmissibility of the preliminary question, since the cases do not present, on the merits, a specific link with Article 19. 1 TEU. They are questions, the Court says, that “do not respond to an objective need for the resolution of said disputes, but rather have a general nature” (paragraph 53). But, in any case, and with the unequivocal desire to preserve the effectiveness of the preliminary ruling as an instrument to guarantee the coherence and autonomy of the legal system of the European Union, if it announces that “national provisions from which it follows that national judges may be exposed to disciplinary proceedings for having referred a preliminary ruling to the Court ”(paragraph 58).

Regarding the disciplinary regime and the preliminary ruling exercise, see the Orders of the President of the CJEU of October 1, 2018 (C-558/18 and C-563/18) and of February 12, 2019 (C-8 / 19).

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