Professor Laurent Pech

Professor Laurent Pech of UCD Sutherland School of Law yesterday said he had lost faith in the organisers of next week’s event, jointly hosted by two influential European Parliament committees.

A draft programme circulated to symposium participants last week included Paweł Czubik as a panel speaker, describing him as a “judge of the Supreme Court of Poland”.

Mr Czubik is among Polish judges whose appointment by the country’s previous far-right government has been ruled as illegal by both the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

An earlier draft programme had included Kamil Zaradkiewicz, who was also illegally appointed to the Supreme Court of Poland, incorrectly describing him as a “judge of the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland”.

In an email seen by Irish Legal News, Professor Pech told organisers that “no illegal judge as per your own institution’s resolutions — let alone two of them — should have ever appeared on any version of the conference programme”.

“As a professor of law who has been invited to participate in a conference on my topic of expertise, my role is not to legitimise and normalise illegal judges and Sunday experts in the name of ‘dialogue’ or ‘diversity of views’,” he said.

He continued: “Respect for the rule of law is a personal and professional red line as far as I am concerned.

“To borrow from CJEU President Lenaerts, ‘authoritarian tendencies at national level simply have no room in the EU legal order’ and it is our duty as lawyers not to normalise lawlessness and the actors pushing for it and/or benefiting from it.

“This is why I would not agree to participate in a professional event — in particular one organised by an EU institution under a duty to uphold and promote EU values — normalising in the name of dialogue bad-faith knowledge-free actors who pursue authoritarian agendas.

“This flawed approach only leads to a situation where the rule of law is ‘bothsided’ with lawlessness.

“As I have now lost confident that these basic guiding principles will be followed in this instance, I have decided with regret to withdraw from the conference.”

An updated draft programme shared with Irish Legal News no longer features any purported members of the Polish judiciary, though it does include supporters of the previous Polish government’s illegal judicial reforms.

In a joint statement, the chairs of the European Parliament’s committees on constitutional affairs (AFCO) and civil liberties (LIBE) told Irish Legal News that the symposium is “a high-level event designed to promote informed dialogue at the European level”.

“It brings together a broad range of expertise and perspectives from across the Union’s member states and political families,” they said.

“The symposium seeks to provide a forum for reflection and exchange, the insights from which will contribute to AFCO’s ongoing work aimed at strengthening a shared understanding of the rule of law across the Union’s diverse constitutional and legal traditions.

“AFCO and LIBE remain committed to ensuring that all discussions are conducted in a spirit of academic and institutional integrity, respectful of the Union’s fundamental values.”

A spokesperson for the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said President Lenaerts intends to participate in the first day of the two-day symposium “given the importance of this subject matter”.

“President Lenaerts is expected to deliver his keynote speech on November 10, 2025, but cannot be present at the symposium on November 11, due to prior commitments,” they added.

“He is not at all involved with the preparation of the programme or the choice of speakers, which is entirely in the hands of the European Parliament and its committees.”

Michael McGrath, the European commissioner for democracy, justice, the rule of law and consumer protection, is also expected to participate.