Gov't will not publish Constitutional Tribunal ruling

Beata Kempa, head of the Chancellery of Prime Minister, said on Thursday evening that the Constitutional Tribunal verdict ruled on December 3 will not come into force, Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza said. Head of the Constitutional Tribunal, Andrzej Rzepliński, has confirmed that he had received a letter from Kempa, in which it says that the government suspends the publication of the verdict in the Journal of Laws, because, in her opinion, the court's bench was not complete. The verdict was reached by five judges, and in Kempa's opinion, the matter was of extraordinary importance, therefore it should be ruled by a full bench. However, the bill on the Constitutional Tribunal says that only the constitutional court is capable of determining whether the matter has the aforementioned character. In her letter, Kempa sais that the publication is withdrawn until Rzepliński takes a position on the letter. The court ruled on December 3 that a paragraph of the amendment to the law on the Constitutional Tribunal adopted by the Sejm in June, on the basis of which two out of five judges were elected in October, was not constitutional, while the choice of the remaining three is valid. The tribunal also said that the President, Andrzej Duda, had no right to refuse the swearing-in of the three judges. However, the president refused to do so, and instead received oaths from five judges chosen by the Sejm with votes from PiS in November.