Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal: Tusk’s changes to public media ‘illegal’

Recent reforms to Poland’s public media by the new government of Donald Tusk, which have sparked a fierce backlash from the opposition, are unlawful, the country’s controversial constitutional court ruled on Thursday – a decision Culture Minister Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz says has “no legal significance” and should be ignored.

On Thursday, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the provisions of the Polish Commercial Code, which Sienkiewicz used to replace public media management and liquidate the media, did not comply with Article 2 of the Polish Constitution.

“The Republic of Poland shall be a democratic state ruled by law and implementing the principles of social justice,” reads the Constitution’s Article 2.

Last month, days after the new government came to power, Sienkiewicz replaced the management of Poland’s public media outlets, TVP and Polskie Radio and put them into liquidation in what the opposition called an illegal takeover of the state media by the new ruling camp.

In Brussels, the European Commission told Euractiv earlier this week that it has long insisted on reforming Poland’s state media sector.

Read more: EU insists on Polish state media reform

But using commercial law to dismiss the managerial boards of those companies does “not have any legal effect,” the Constitutional Tribunal ruled.

It also declared that a provision of the media law allowing the commercial code to be applied to both state broadcasters cannot be used to dissolve or place those entities into liquidation.

However, the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU have questioned the impartiality of the Constitutional Tribunal, which was reformed under the previous conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government.

The current government and many experts believe that the tribunal, including its head Julia Przyłębska, who also ruled in the media case, is still controlled by PiS, which changed the law to make the court dominated by its loyal judges.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)

Read more with Euractiv

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