Manowska, who also serves as chair of the State Tribunal, is accused of exceeding her powers and failing to carry out her official duties in three separate matters.
If approved, this would mark the first time a sitting head of Poland’s Supreme Court has faced such proceedings.
The requests from the National Public Prosecutor’s Office were submitted on Wednesday to both the Supreme Court’s Chamber of Professional Accountability and the State Tribunal.
According to Prosecutor Przemysław Nowak, consent from both bodies is required due to Manowska’s dual role.
The case concerns three main allegations. First, prosecutors say Manowska unlawfully validated a series of votes taken by the Supreme Court’s internal College despite the absence of a quorum.
The votes, conducted remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, involved key resolutions taken between 2021 and 2022.
Critics argue that Manowska counted abstentions as valid votes in order to push the decisions through. She has defended the process as consistent with emergency procedures used by her predecessor.
Second, she is accused of failing to convene a full session of the State Tribunal within the 45-day period mandated by law, following a formal request from six of its members in March 2023.
Manowska argued that the chair alone holds the authority to initiate such action and declined to act on the request.
The third charge relates to her refusal to carry out a binding court order issued in 2021, which required the Supreme Court to publish information acknowledging the suspension of Judge Paweł Juszczyszyn as unenforceable pending further proceedings.
Prosecutors say her failure to comply harmed both Juszczyszyn’s reputation and the integrity of the judiciary.
Manowska maintained that she had neither the authority nor the obligation to alter court documents in this way.
Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar said the investigation was prompted by complaints from Juszczyszyn’s lawyers, Supreme Court judges and State Tribunal members.
He added that prosecutors had collected sufficient evidence to support all three charges.
Manowska, a former deputy justice minister and legal academic, has served as a Supreme Court judge since 2018 and was appointed chief justice in 2020.
The case comes amid broader efforts to address the legacy of controversial judicial reforms introduced under Poland’s previous right-wing government, which critics say undermined judicial independence.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP