Once again, lawyers associated around the Court Watch Polska Foundation protest against the introduction with a novel of the Code of Civil Procedure restrictions on the transparency of hearings. The Foundation calls on the President to veto the bill.
Act dated 28 May 2021 the amendment of the Civil Procedure Code and some other laws undermines the opinion of lawyers (hereinafter: kc) Article 45. The Constitution that:
Everyone has the right to a fair and open trial without undue delay by a competent, independent, impartial and independent court.
Disclosure of the hearing may take place on grounds of morality, State security and public order and on grounds of the protection of the private life of the parties or of any other important private interest. The sentence is public.
The exclusion of disclosure, as contained in the amendment, which assumes that the parties have the right to object to this decision, is also in flagrant opposition to Article 6 European Convention on Human Rights.
The Act violates the Constitution and human rights also by a record which allows for the qualification of proceedings to be classified only on the basis of a decision by a judge chairman, and the Act does not specify any criteria for taking that decision, which de facto means that any hearing subject to kc will be able to proceed by a procedure excluding the presence of the public or the media. As the Court Watch Polska points out, this will put the State Treasury at risk of loss, since any decision taken on such unlawful overriding trials can be challenged.
The government explains the changes in the pandemic situation, but, as we read in the appeal of the Foundation, this measure is disproportionate due to the extinction of the COVID pandemic. Moreover, without a state of emergency, fundamental rights cannot be restricted to citizens, and that is the right to fair and open legal proceedings.