Today, the Commission decided to close the infringement case launched on 2 July 2018 regarding the retirement regime for Polish Supreme Court judges (introduced by the Law of 8 December 2017 on the Supreme Court). On 24 June 2019, the Court of Justice rendered its final ruling in this case (C-619/18).
The Court declared that Poland had failed to fulfil its obligations under the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU: first, by providing that the measure consisting in lowering the retirement age of the judges of the Supreme Court is to apply to judges in post who were appointed to that court before the law entered into force; second, by granting the President of Poland the discretion to extend the period of judicial activity of judges of that court beyond the newly fixed retirement age.
Poland has amended its legislation by removing the contested retirement regime, and there are no indications that the Supreme Court judges concerned by the contested legislation are still affected by it. Consequently, this matter has been resolved and the Commission therefore decided to close the case.