Joined cases C-748/19 to C-754/19 of the District Prosecutor’s Offices

The essence of the cases: determining whether the fact that the court is composed of a delegated judge on the basis of a one-person decision of the Minister of Justice from a court located one level lower in the hierarchy, the criteria followed by the Minister of Justice when delegating this judge are not known, and domestic law does not provide for judicial review of such a decision and allows the Minister of Justice to remove a judge from the delegation at any time, breaches the requirements of effective judicial protection, including the right to an independent trial

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The Court of Justice decided not to schedule a hearing

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At present, the opinion of the Advocate General has not been presented

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Decision of the European Court of Human Rights of 17 November 2009, application no. 39279/05

 “The applicant also submitted that Judge J.M. was not impartial in the manner in which he was assigned to his case. It should be noted that at that time Judge J.M. was a district court judge delegated to the regional court, who was appointed indefinitely by the president of the Republic of Poland. Moreover, delegating a judge by the Minister of Justice was a standard practice provided for by the Act [of June 20, 1985] on the System of Common Courts (Article 63 § 1 of the Act in its then wording). The applicant did not provide any evidence that Judge J.M. was subject to any influence or pressure on the part of the executive. In view of the above, the Court cannot accept that, at the time of deciding the criminal case against the applicant, Judge J.M. lacked either independence or impartiality in the subjective and objective sense of these terms, within the meaning of Art. 6 sec. 1 of the Convention.

Therefore, this complaint is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected pursuant to Art. 35 sec. 3 and 4 of the Convention. “

    The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights shows that the institution of delegating a judge to a hierarchically higher court does not in itself prove the vulnerability of such a judge to the influence or pressure of the executive. The ruling of the Court of Justice in joined cases C-748/19 to C-754/19 of District Prosecutor’s Offices will prove compliance or non-compliance with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights.