An apparent crack on the face of Themis

Abstract

The article is a polemic with the text by A. Gomułowicz entitled A scratch on the face of Themis (“Kwartalnik Prawa Podatkowego” 2022, no. 2, pp. 29–38), which is a critical and at the same time a kind of gloss to the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of 4 November 2021 (III FSK 3626/21) concerning judicial (assessor) appointments with the participation of the current NCJ. This is a gloss written in the form of legal journalism combined additionally with a constitutional law lecture, the precision of which leaves much to be desired. As a result, the article contains a number of theses loosely inspired by the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court (e.g., with regard to the Astradsson test) and put forward with disregard for the body of rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal and the doctrine of constitutional law (e.g., with regard to the prerogative of the President of the Republic of Poland). As a result, it should be concluded that the Author treats the issue raised in the NSA’s judgment too superficially, merely proclaims his convictions rather than trying to prove them. In this way, however, he has no chance of getting closer to the truth, which, as he declares, he values more than friendship.