Justice Minister and Prosecutor-General Waldemar Żurek said on Tuesday that prosecutors would begin handling a criminal complaint filed by Constitutional Tribunal Judge Sławomir Patyra.
"We are proceeding with this complaint today, and we will conduct proceedings to establish what the facts are and what evidence there is," Żurek told broadcaster TVP Info.
The filing is a notification of a suspected crime and does not itself mean that charges have been brought, state news agency PAP reported.
Patyra alleges that Święczkowski repeatedly changed the composition of judicial panels in breach of rules governing how Constitutional Tribunal judges are assigned to cases, potentially influencing the outcome of rulings.
Under the rules cited by Żurek, judges are assigned according to alphabetical order, while taking account of the type and number of cases and the order in which they reach the Tribunal.
Żurek said Patyra had identified several cases since January in which judges who should have sat on panels were replaced. They included cases concerning whether some presidential acts require the prime minister's countersignature and the transcription in Poland of foreign same-sex marriage certificates.
The complaint contains detailed descriptions of which judges should have heard individual cases and how the panels were subsequently changed, Żurek said.
The Constitutional Tribunal rejected the allegations. It said judicial panels had been and continued to be assigned in accordance with the law and called claims that Święczkowski had sought to influence rulings "groundless."
The Tribunal also said the timing of Patyra's complaint could be seen as personal retaliation.
Święczkowski last week began proceedings that could lead to disciplinary charges against Patyra and fellow judges Magdalena Bentkowska and Dariusz Szostek.
The disciplinary proceedings concern, among other issues, the judges' refusal to take part in some Tribunal cases and meetings. The dispute comes amid a broader standoff inside the Constitutional Tribunal over judges elected by parliament this year.
Six judges were elected by the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, in March. President Karol Nawrocki has not formally administered the oath to four of them, Krystian Markiewicz, Marcin Dziurda, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska and Maciej Taborowski.
Those four held their own swearing-in ceremony at parliament in April, declaring that they were taking the oath "before the president," and delivered written copies to the presidential palace.
Święczkowski has not recognized the ceremony as fulfilling the legal requirement and they have not been admitted to judicial duties at the Tribunal.
Maciej Berek, elected by parliament in September, has also asked Nawrocki to arrange his swearing-in.
Bentkowska and Szostek earlier filed a separate criminal complaint over the exclusion of the four March appointees.
The National Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation in April and last week charged the director of the Constitutional Tribunal's office and the commander of its security service in connection with the case.
Patyra, elected by parliament in June and sworn in before Nawrocki in July, has said he will not take part in the Tribunal's judicial work until the four judges elected in March are allowed to hear cases.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR/PAP, tvn24.pl