On methods of judicial appointment

Eugeniusz Waśkowski (1866-1942) was one of the most prominent Polish civil law lawyers in the interwar period. He possessed a thorough knowledge about the organization of the judiciary and the Bar. He spoke out on matters relating to the judicial system, civil procedure, organization of the Bar and deontology of legal professions. He is a figure who still inspires Polish and Russian, and recently also Ukrainian legal sciences with his achievements, views on the essence of law as well as his biography. His works are reissued and commented on. For more see A. Redzik, Eugeniusz Waśkowski (1866-1942). On the 70th anniversary of the death of an outstanding scientist and lawyer, “Palestra” 2012, No. 9-10, pp. 255-267.

In an article published in 1924, Professor Waśkowski reflected on the draft law on the system of courts prepared by the Codification Committee of the Republic of Poland. In the study, he presented methods of judicial appointment in other countries, emphasizing the utmost relevance of the guarantees of independence and impartiality, and not the method of judicial appointment. He wrote, inter alia: “The appointment of judges by the Minister does not contradict an independence of the courts if after the appointment the fate of the judge becomes independent of the Minister’s or any other state body’s will”. Waśkowski discussed advantages and disadvantages of each of the available models, referring to the literature and previous experiences – both from the West and the East.

The article offers a ground for further reflection. Models of judicial appointments are diverse also nowadays. It is important that they do not generate defects that have been known for centuries, and above all do not cause any dependence of the judges to external actors. Only minimal modernization of the spelling was introduced to the text.

Keywords: The judiciary in early XX century; judicial appointment; the judiciary of the Second Polish Republic; Codification Commission of the Republic of Poland; Eugeniusz Waśkowski.


This article is published in Polish.