EU concerned about Polish law on banning people from public office

The European Commission expressed “special concern” on Tuesday about Poland’s new law under which a committee elected by the ruling majority can ban individuals from public office with no possibility of appeal to an independent court.

The law pushed through by Poland’s ruling eurosceptic and nationalist PiS party comes in the middle of an election campaign before parliamentary elections in October.

Strongly criticised as unconstitutional by several judicial organisations, including the parliament’s own legal office, the law is widely seen as a way for the PiS, which will appoint all members of the committee, to ban top opposition politicians, including opposition leader Donald Tusk, from taking office if the PiS is ousted in the elections.

“We have a special concern now about the situation in Poland with the creation by law of a special committee able to deprive citizens, individuals, from their right to be elected to public office,” EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said.

“It will be possible to do that with an administrative decision without any judicial review, so it is a special concern and the Commission will … not hesitate to take measures, if needed because it is impossible to agree on such a system,” he said on entering talks of EU ministers in Brussels.

Since 2017, Poland has been under a European Union procedure envisaged for countries which do not observe the rule of law, because the PiS party has been changing laws to gain influence over the country’s judicial system.

As a result, the EU has frozen the disbursement of EU funds for Warsaw until the principle of the independence of courts is observed.