(CN) — Poland's refusal to abide to European Union court rulings may become extremely expensive after the bloc's top court on Wednesday ordered Warsaw to pay 1 million euros a day unless it rescinds controversial judicial reforms.
The European Court of Justice's hefty fine, which equates to over $1.16 million a day, raises the stakes in a bruising fight between Poland's nationalist right-wing government and EU leaders over the primacy of EU laws over national legal orders. The fight entered a critical phase after Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled earlier this month that the Polish constitution and not EU law is supreme.
On Wednesday, the EU's high court said in a news release that the daily fine was necessary “to avoid serious and irreparable harm to the legal order of the European Union and to the values on which that Union is founded, in particular that of the rule of law.” The court said it would issue a full ruling at a later date.
Poland has rocked EU politics by rejecting the principle that every EU member state must abide by rulings issued by the EU's supranational courts. Poland's government, which is backed by other anti-EU political forces in Europe, argues that the powers of EU courts and institutions are limited and that they can't tell it how it should run its courts.
Since coming to power in 2015, Poland's ruling Law and Justice party has tried to overhaul the country's judiciary and in doing so set up a new disciplinary chamber for judges within the Supreme Court. Critics contend Law and Justice's judicial changes are designed to remove judges the party doesn't like and pack the courts with allies.
Judicial reforms, critics contend, are part of a larger trend in Poland and Hungary to centralize power in an authoritarian way and reject basic democratic values. Ruling right-wing politicians in both countries say they are being attacked for their political views, such as not welcoming refugees and immigrants and taking anti-LGBT positions.
In July, the Court of Justice ruled that the new Supreme Court disciplinary chamber was not adequately independent from political pressures and impartial and needs to be scrapped. But Poland refused to carry out that order, prompting the European Commission to ask the Court of Justice to issue fines against Poland.
Besides the court fine, the European Commission, the EU's executive body, is looking at punishing Poland by withholding billions of dollars in coronavirus recovery aid.
The fight is straining the EU and even prompting speculation about Poland's potential exit from the bloc, which remains extremely unlikely. With Poland refusing to back down, it has threatened to disrupt EU policymaking if the bloc's leaders seek to punish it financially.
The Court of Justice's decision to hand down the daily fine comes as Poland's President Andrzej Duda meets with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Wednesday to discuss ways to end the rule-of-law crisis.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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