Poland seeks compromise with EU on law dispute

Politicians in Poland have moved to ease a row with the European Union over judicial independence in a bid to access the bloc's novel coronavirus pandemic fund.

Brussels and Warsaw have been engaged in a battle over Poland's controversial judiciary reforms, with an estimated 36 billion euros ($40.9 billion) in EU pandemic recovery aid being withheld over concerns around judicial independence.

Members of Parliament from Poland's ruling Law and Justice party on Friday proposed a bill to change a contested disciplinary chamber for judges, reported the Financial Times.

In October, Poland's top court, the Constitutional Tribunal, ruled that the country's constitution had primacy over EU law, initiating a feud with the bloc.

The EU said that a new disciplinary chamber for judges in Poland violated EU law because it did not provide guarantees of impartiality.

The European Court of Justice ruled that Poland must pay one million euros ($1.13 million) per day in fines for keeping its current disciplinary chamber for judges.

The EU says Poland's disciplinary system for judges must be changed to unlock access to the pandemic recovery aid.

Some Polish politicians argued that the EU has no right to intervene and that judicial changes were necessary to fix an inefficient system.

Aiming to appease the EU, Poland's ruling nationalists have now proposed legislation where "the disciplinary chamber would remain, but only as a panel for prosecutors, advocates and other legal professions", reported the Reuters news agency.

The proposal says the chamber would no longer handle cases involving judges, and any proceedings against judges would instead be heard by three or seven supreme court judges selected by lot for a particular case.

The bill says a judge may not be disciplined for delivering any ruling, unless "the decision was issued as a result of serious and utterly unforgivable behavior of the judge".

President Andrzej Duda submitted a separate proposal seeking to resolve the row last week. Amid mounting tension in neighboring Ukraine, he said Poland did "not need this fight" in light of the "shocks on the international scene", noted the FT.

Critics say neither of the proposals addresses the main problem with Poland's judicial reform, which is the politicized appointment of judges, according to Reuters.

In a recent interview with the Politico news site, European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said Poland's coalition politics loom over the rule-of-law dispute with the EU.

The commissioner suggested politics within the coalition of three conservative groupings are contributing to the stalemate.

"In Poland, I've seen different members of the government," he said. "And I've seen that there were some attempts to come out with draft law," he added.

"What is very clear (is) that in many member states, not only in Poland, there are coalitions, and there are millions of discussions inside the coalitions," Reynders said.