Iustitias vestras iudicabo. The boundaries of liberal democratic standard of judiciary

The maxim of iustitias vestras iudicabo (I will judge your justice) is not very oft-quoted in the anglophone world, quite contrary to the Polish legal tradition. The saying serves as a reminder of an always higher authority: even the judges – the ones who themselves dispense justice – must be responsible for their actions. The God is the implicit enforcer of the admonition – can anyone else have the right to this claim?

In the recent years, the discussion over judges’ appointment and personal responsibility has become embedded in political and legal controversies. The ongoing conflict between some of the EU member states – Hungary and Poland – and the European Commission over the legal reforms changing the structure of judiciary in the said countries is certainly the most salient one, but by no means unique. These developments go against the established consensus that advocates for an increase of judges’ own role in the governance of judicial power. Constitutional reforms in the UK and France are one of the most important examples of the growing power of the judiciary. In both cases, the traditional principles of parliamentary supremacy and of the indivisible popular sovereignty are being circumscribed.

In our forum, we would like to debate some of the key problems related to judicial appointments. We are asking ourselves two fundamental questions: first, how judges should be chosen to maintain democratic and liberal standards (the formal problem); second, to what extent judges may set themselves to be guardians/setters of democratic and liberal standards (the material problem).