09/03/2026
On 28 January 2026, Dr Oliver Mader and Professor Laurent Pech wrote to the Secretariat of the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the EU in respect of Ms Małgorzata Manowska’s membership of the Network.
In their email to the Secretariat, they asked the Secretariat to confirm whether the Network had taken account inter alia of the judgment of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) of 3 February 2022 in which the Court established that Ms Manowska was one of a number of so-called “neo-judges” appointed in a defective procedure characterised by fundamental irregularities in manifest breach of domestic law and in violation inter alia of a ruling of Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court.
Following a request to substantiate our concerns by providing references to the relevant judgments of the ECtHR and the Court of Justice of the EU, Dr Mader and Professor Pech emailed a memorandum to the Secretariat with the view to obtaining a review of Ms Manowska’s membership of the Network in the light of its governing statute.
This memorandum (emailed to the Network on 20 February 2026) is available here.
The decision to make this memorandum publicly available is motivated by several reasons.
First, having an illegal judge as a full member of the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the EU is detrimental to the work and reputation of this Network and, more broadly, to that of the national judiciaries represented in this Network by Presidents of senior courts.
Second, the inclusion of illegal judges in the membership of the Network has a legitimising effect with regard to backsliding and hinders full restoration of required rule of law standards within the relevant Member State, but also regarding efforts to uphold the rule of law in all EU Member States.
Third, proper enforcement by the Network of its own membership standards would facilitate Poland’s rule of law restoration efforts by making it clear that lawlessness will not be tolerated both legally and socially.
Fourth, the Network is highly likely to face a similar situation in the near future with another “illegal judge” expected to replace Ms Manowska.
Fifth, any complacent handling of this situation entails a precedential effect for other judicial or professional networks, who could be tempted to align themselves with a negligent example.
Finally, the European Commission has recognised the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the EU as one of the few privileged stakeholders the Commission consults as part of its Annual Rule of Law Report. As such, the Network’s compliance record with CJEU and ECtHR rule of law-related judgments is a matter of public interest.
Beyond the case of this Network, the normalisation of illegal judges appointed in gross violation of relevant rules by European bodies that are supposed to uphold the rule of law has wider ramifications that deserve closer public scrutiny (see e.g. the recent post co-authored by Professor Pech with Adam Bodnar in respect of the Venice Commission here).
The same applies to the normalisation of bodies masquerading as courts. In this respect, it remains unclear why the Conference of European Constitutional Courts, another “privileged stakeholder” formally recognised as such by the European Commission, still counts Poland’s “Constitutional Tribunal” as one of its members, especially in the light of the CJEU’s judgment of 18 December 2025 holding that this body no longer meets the requirement of an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.
This normalisation of illegal judges and fake courts fundamentally undermines the authority of domestic and European rulings in addition to having a legitimising effect with regard to backsliding. We can and ought to expect better from organisations representing Europe’s most senior judges and courts.