Małgorzata Gersdorf

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Małgorzata Gersdorf

Małgorzata Maria Gersdorf (born November 22, 1952 in Warsaw ) is a Polish lawyer, professor at the University of Warsaw and was President of the Supreme Court in Poland from 2014 to the end of April 2020 .

Career

Gersdorf graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1975 with a degree in law and received her doctorate in 1981. In 1992 she became a professor at the University of Warsaw, from 2005 she was Vice-Rector of the University and in 2008 she was Dean of the Faculty of Law.

Gersdorf became involved in the Solidarność movement in the 1980s . After the founding of the Third Polish Republic in 1989, she was a member of the 'Commission for Social Reconciliation', which brought political prisoners from the previous communist government back into the working world. Gersdorf acted as an advisor to the Supreme Court in the 2000s and was nominated as a judge for the Supreme Court in 2008. On April 30, 2014, she was appointed President of the Supreme Court by President Bronisław Komorowski . She succeeded Stanisław Dąbrowski , who died on January 9, 2014.

In 2015, the ruling party PiS announced a structural reform of the Supreme Court, which provided that parliament could in future nominate judges itself, instead of the previous nomination by the judges' organization Krajowa Rada Sądownictwa . This and other projects led to a Polish constitutional crisis . In 2017, Gersdorf wrote an open letter to the country's judges calling on them to “defend every inch of the rule of law”. Before that, she had often reminded people that the Polish courts could very easily be turned into a toy for politicians. The structural reform was passed by both chambers of the Polish parliament, but was not signed by President Andrzej Duda .

At the beginning of July 2018 she was retired due to the lowering of the retirement age of judges from 70 to 65 years by the law on the compulsory retirement of judges at the Supreme Court, but refused to give up her office because, according to Article 183 of the Constitution, the term of the court president is six Years.

On July 20, 2018, Ms. Gersdorf gave a lecture on the situation of the Polish judiciary at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe at the invitation of President Bettina Limperg as part of the Reinhold Frank commemorative lecture “The rule of law in Poland - missed opportunities?”. BGH President Bettina Limperg and the constitutional judge Johannes Masing have demonstratively stood by Ms. Gersdorf.

The Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki visited Judge Gersdorf on September 19, 2018 at 8 a.m. in her study in the Supreme Court. Until then, Morawiecki had not recognized Gersdorf as an active judge. Perhaps the visit to the European Union should signal a willingness to compromise on the part of the PiS government. After the ECJ had suspended the lowering of the retirement age for constitutional judges in Poland in the course of an interim injunction on October 19, 2018 and ordered the immediate reinstatement of the judges who had already been retired, on October 22, 2018, Gersdorf called on the 23 judges who were forced to retire even included returning to active duty. Gersdorf's term of office expired on April 30, 2020. Kamil Zaradkiewicz was appointed provisional successor before Małgorzata Manowska was appointed the new President of the Supreme Court in a controversial decision.

Gersdorf received the Theodor Heuss Prize 2019. It was presented on May 11, 2019 in Stuttgart.

Private life

She has been married to the former Polish constitutional judge Bohdan Zdziennicki since 2000 . She has a son from her first marriage to the current Dean of Law at the University of Warsaw, Tomasz Giaro , whom she married during her university days .

Web links

Commons : Małgorzata Gersdorf  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ prof. dr got Małgorzata Maria Gersdorf near Nowa Nauka Polska. Retrieved August 12, 2018 (pl-PL).
  2. ↑ a b Biography on the Supreme Court website (Polish), accessed March 29, 2018
  3. ↑ Małgorzata Gersdorf: Pierwsza kobieta Pierwszą Prezes Sądu Najwyższego , Newsweek Polska from April 30, 2014
  4. ↑ Polish judges urged to 'fight every inch' for their independence , article in The Guardian of February 26, 2017
  5. ↑ a b Implementation of judicial reform in Poland: Judge ignores her dismissal , taz.de, July 5, 2018
  6. ↑ Malgorzata Gersdorf - Polish judge in retirement Tagesspiegel July 20, 2018
  7. ↑ . Wystąpienie prezes Gersdorf w Karlsruhe "Polityka" July 21, 2018
  8. ↑ Poland must suspend the compulsory retirement of judges Süddeutsche Zeitung October 20, 2018
  9. ↑ Poland Supreme Court judges return to work after EU court ruling Euractiv.com October 23, 2018
  10. ^ Judicial reform in Poland: Herber Rückschlag , Die Tageszeitung from April 8, 2020
  11. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: New Chairperson at Poland's Supreme Court - DER SPIEGEL - Politics. Retrieved May 25, 2020 .
  12. ↑ www.theodor-heuss-stiftung.de: 54th Theodor Heuss award ceremony. “Everyone their own democracy? No democracy without the rule of law! ”Theodor Heuss Prize for Małgorzata Gersdorf.
  13. ↑ Poland's defiant Supreme Court chief devoted to the law , au.news.yahoo.com, July 4, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Gersdorf, Małgorzata
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gersdorf, Małgorzata Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish lawyer and judge at the Polish Supreme Court
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw