Judgment concerning Poland
In the case of Biliński v. Poland, the Court held that there had been a violation of the right to access to court.
The case concerned the decision to transfer the applicant, a judge, between two divisions of the same court, against his will, and his subsequent appeal against that decision.
The Court found that a judge’s right to protection against arbitrary transfers between different courts also applied to arbitrary transfers between divisions of the same court dealing with different areas of law. Taking into account, among other things, the fact that the applicant had been criticised by politicians for his rulings in politically sensitive cases and that his transfer had been ordered by a judge who had previously served under the then Minister of Justice as a seconded judge and had been appointed to the post of president of the applicant’s court by him, it was legitimate for the applicant to suspect that there had been an element of arbitrariness in his transfer. The decision to transfer the applicanti had not been reviewed by a body exercising judicial functions or by an ordinary court and, as such, his right of access to a court had been impaired.