Is It Polexit Yet? Comment on Case K 3/21 of 7 October 2021 by the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland

Abstract

The application submitted by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to the Constitutional Tribunal, in which he challenged the legality of the European Court of Justice judgments inconvenient to the current Polish government, came at a time when, after months (or even years) of wavering and hesitation, the EU finally began to enforce the Polish government’s compliance with EU law and principles. The ‘judgment’ of the Constitutional Tribunal was handed down with an uncharacteristic (for the Constitutional Tribunal these days) speed on 7 October 2021. In contrast, disclosure of full reasons for the decision has suffered unusual delay: as a matter of fact, they have not been published even as this Case Note is prepared for publication (see n. 7 below). (It is important to note that these proceedings have been invalid from the beginning, due to the incorrect composition of the judges’ panel, as explained below, in the opening paragraph of the next part of this Case Note.) Polish and other European lawyers were