The Strasbourg court has instructed Poland to award €30,000 in damages and €6,000 in legal fees to Judge Tuleya. However, a Polish deputy justice minister has claimed that the ruling by the court is not legally binding.

Judge Tuleya has emerged as a symbol of resistance against the Law and Justice (PiS) government’s reform of the judiciary. He has been targeted by prosecutors attempting to bring criminal charges against him, had his immunity revoked, and been barred from serving as a judge.

In response to this treatment, he submitted a case to the ECtHR, claiming violations of his rights under various sections of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court ruled in his favour yesterday.

Firstly, it found that his right to a fair trial had been violated as the Supreme Court’s disciplinary chamber, which removed his immunity to face criminal charges, was not a “tribunal established by law”, as confirmed by two previous ECHR rulings.

The court noted that although the professional responsibility chamber, which replaced the disciplinary chamber after it was disbanded last year, confirmed in November 2022 that Judge Tuleya had committed no criminal offence, the decision to lift his immunity has not been reversed and he is still subject to criminal proceedings.

Secondly, the ECtHR determined that the actions taken against him had undermined his integrity and reputation, as well as preventing him from practising for over two years, significantly impacting his private life. This constituted an infringement of his right to respect for private life.

Thirdly, the European Court discovered a breach of the judge’s right to freedom of expression, because “the lifting of Mr Tuleya’s immunity had been a disguised sanction for his expressing criticism of successive judicial reform” and was part of “a strategy aimed at intimidating (or even silencing) him for his views”.

“The court could not accept that there had been any legitimate aim for the interference with Mr Tuleya’s right to freedom of expression,” the said in its judgment. “He had steadily defended the rule of law and independence of the judiciary, without going beyond criticism from a strictly professional perspective.”

Deputy Justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta highlighted that last year, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (TK) declared that the ECtHR does not have the authority to evaluate the legality of Polish judicial appointments.

“Consequently, today’s ruling [by the ECHR] has no binding effect on Poland,” Mr Kaleta tweeted.