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Poland’s highest court on Thursday ruled Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s overhaul of state media was unconstitutional, the latest pushback against the pro-EU leader’s sweeping attempt to reshape public institutions.
The constitutional court ruled in a case brought by the rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) that the liquidation of state media — which Tusk said was a step in his planned overhaul — breached a constitutional article declaring Poland to be a “democratic state ruled by law”.
It was the latest ruling by the court against Tusk’s reform drive since he took power in the EU member state in December.
The court, which is dominated by judges appointed by the PiS while it was in office, last week barred lawmakers from forcing the PiS-appointed governor of the central bank to stand trial before a special tribunal that judges the eligibility of senior public officials for allegedly abusing his powers.
Tusk’s culture ministry said Thursday’s ruling on state media had “no legal significance” because of the court’s politicisation and called into doubt judgments issued by ‘double judges’ — the phrase Polish critics use to refer to people they think who should not be part of the judiciary.
“Judgments issued with the participation of so-called double judges do not have universally binding force and are not final,” it said, noting that the European Court of Human Rights in 2021 found Poland’s constitutional tribunal was no longer an independent court.
Tusk has pledged to restore the rule of law in Poland, but the PiS and President Andrzej Duda, a PiS nominee, have sought to turn the tables on his overhaul by arguing his coalition government is itself breaking the law.
Tusk’s revamp of state media, which he said had become a mouthpiece for the PiS, has emerged as a major battleground. Duda, a lawyer by training, appealed this week to Věra Jourová, European Commission vice-president for values and transparency, to stop the media overhaul.
After meeting Duda in Davos at the World Economic Forum, Jourová said Tusk’s intervention had been “decisive” but that the situation he inherited did not necessarily “authorise any action”.
Jourová described the situation as “dangerous” and deplored the fact that the EU’s Media Freedom Act was not yet in force, as it is designed to allow Brussels to intervene in cases where media transparency is at risk.
Piotr Kochański, managing partner at Polish law firm Kochański & Partners, said the constitutional court’s brief ruling “does not even allow for logical analysis” but forecast more similar decisions: “This war for democracy will continue, so similar circumstances will surely occur again.”
Thursday’s ruling came after Tusk’s culture minister last month appointed new bosses at the public media companies, who immediately stopped broadcasting the news channel of state broadcaster TVP.
Duda vetoed a budget bill that was tied to Tusk’s media takeover, forcing the coalition government to rewrite it; the culture ministry then put TVP into an insolvency process, which it said would aid a reorganisation and full audit.
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