Igor Tuleya – a judge critical of the conservative government – is not guilty of enabling public disclosure of information and can return to work after being suspended for over two years, ruled Poland’s Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Tuleya was accused by prosecutors of allowing public disclosure of information when he allowed journalists to attend and record proceedings where he effectively ruled against the government. In recent years, Tuleya became a symbol of opposition to the government’s judicial policies, Notes from Poland reported.
“We declare and state that judge Igor Tuleya did not commit any crime on 18 December 2017, when he decided to conduct the hearing in public and allowed the media to attend. The judge acted on the basis and within the law,” Judge Małgorzata Wąsek-Wiaderek said of the ruling, as quoted by RMF FM.
The new ruling reversed the decision from November 2020, when Tuleya was stripped of immunity from prosecution and suspended from work by the controversial Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court, which the EU Court of Justice declared illegal under the EU law.
The Disciplinary Chamber was dissolved earlier this year as one of the milestones agreed by the Polish government with the European Commission for the country to unlock funds from the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility. The implementation of the ruling concerning Tuleya will probably be closely monitored by the Commission.
Tuleya had never accepted the validity of his suspension. Yet, his attempts to return to work were blocked, even though lower courts ordered that he be allowed to return. The judge also refused prosecutors’ requests to come in for questioning, leading them to seek for him to be forcibly detained, a demand which was later rejected by the Disciplinary Chamber.
It is not yet clear whether Tuleya is allowed to resume his work as a result of Tuesday’s ruling. He said he would go to work on Wednesday while emphasising that “he is ready for any turn of events.”
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)
Source: euractiv.com
