Reuters: “Poland will do away with a disciplinary system for judges which the EU’s top court has ruled violates EU law, the head of the ruling PiS party said, in a bid to diffuse a row that could result in financial penalties against the country. Poland faces an Aug. 16 deadline set by the European Commission to disband the Disciplinary Chamber, which the EU says is being used to pressure judges or to exert political control over judicial decisions, and undercuts the bloc’s laws. ‘We will dissolve the Disciplinary Chamber as it currently operates and in this way the subject of the dispute will disappear,’ Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and a deputy prime minister, said in an interview published on Saturday with state-run news agency PAP.”

“Under PiS Poland has clashed with the EU on a number of fronts, such as media independence and the rights of migrants, women and gays. Some legal experts say the dissolution of the Disciplinary Chamber would be a cosmetic change which would not be enough to satisfy the EU’s top court. ‘The mere dissolution of the Disciplinary Chamber doesn’t solve the problem of past, unlawful decisions and sanctions adopted by this body,’ said Laurent Pech, professor of European law at Middlesex University, London. ‘If they want to comply with EU law, it is quite simple. They have to undo everything they have done for the past five years, there is no other way,’ Pech added, referring to a series of measures such as reforms to the Constitutional Tribunal, which will rule on whether the Polish constitution takes precedence over EU treaties this month.”