Op-Ed: “Saying Less is Sometimes More (even in Rule-of-Law Cases): Grzęda v Poland” by David Kosar and Mathieu Leloup

On 15 March the European Court of Human Rights issued its first Grand Chamber judgment on the rule of law crisis in Poland. In Grzęda, the Court had to rule whether the premature termination of the judicial members of the National Council of the Judiciary (NCJ), as a part of the wide-scale judicial reforms, complied with the Convention. More specifically, the question was whether Article 6(1) ECHR is applicable under its civil head to a dispute arising out of the premature termination of a judge’s term of office as a judicial member of the NCJ, while he still remains a serving judge (§ 265). The Grand Chamber concluded, by sixteen votes to one, that the civil limb of Article 6(1) ECHR applies to the present dispute and that there was a v