Polish prosecutors probe chief justice

WARSAW: Polish prosecutors on Thursday said they launched a probe against the chief justice of the constitutional court, who has been locked in conflict with the governing conservatives for months.

Judge Andrzej Rzeplinski is being investigated for "negligence or abuse of power", the spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, Ireneusz Kunert, said, quoted by local media.

The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of three years behind bars.

Poland’s top court has been in crisis since late last year, when the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party swept to power and immediately pushed through legislation that critics say paralysed the constitutional court.

The controversial measures have triggered mass street protests and prompted the European Commission to give Warsaw until the end of October to reverse what it termed a "systematic threat" to the rule of law or face sanctions. Kunert said prosecutors launched the probe after receiving an abuse of power complaint against Rzeplinski, but did not identify the person in question.

"It’s an attempt... to interfere in the independence and distinct character of judicial power," Rzeplinski said of the investigation, quoted by the Polish news agency PAP.

Last week the constitutional court struck down most of the sections of a new law adopted by the PiS government defining how the court works.

On Tuesday, the government published 21 constitutional court rulings, thus giving them force of law. It however declined to publish two rulings on the court itself. A European Commission spokeswoman said "we take note of the publication... of a number of the judgements" but added that "our concerns remain".

Brussels had in late July handed Poland’s government the three-month deadline to reverse changes to the top court or face sanctions for breaching EU norms on the rule of law and democracy.