Information Note on the Court’s case-law 232
August-September 2019
Broda and Bojara v. Poland (communicated case) - 26691/18 and 27367/18
Article 6
Administrative proceedings
Article 6-1
Access to court
Law empowering Ministry of Justice to dismiss court presidents before expiry of their term of office, unconditionally and without proper reasoning or any right of appeal: communicated
A legislative amendment entered into force in 2017 with the effect of temporarily empowering the Minister of Justice to dismiss court presidents with significantly greater latitude than before. The applicants, professional judges with tenure, had been appointed as vice-presidents of a regional court in 2014 for a six-year term. In January 2018 they were dismissed from that post. The applicants unsuccessfully asked the Minister for explanations about the scant and very general reasons mentioned in their dismissal letters (“administrative shortcomings”, the continuation of their office would have undermined the “proper functioning of the courts”, etc.), which did not give any factual details and appeared in their view to be unfounded. The Ministry replied that the unequivocal provisions of the above-mentioned legislation released the Minister from any obligation to give reasons and that it was futile to challenge the existence of shortcomings in their court because the law empowered the Minister to use his powers as he saw fit merely for the “improvement” of a situation, without the situation in question having to be unsatisfactory as such. Before the Court, the applicants complain that they had no right of appeal against the decision, alleging it to be arbitrary.
Communicated under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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