The joint legal challenge against the European Council has been brought by MEDEL, based in Strasbourg, France; the International Association of Judges, based in Rome, Italy; the Association of European Administrative Judges, based in Trier, Germany; and Rechters voor Rechters, based in The Hague, Netherlands.

The four organisations are represented by a Dublin-based legal team composed of senior counsel Carsten Zatschler SC and Emily Egan McGrath SC and Philip Lee solicitors Anne Bateman and Maeve Delargy, now also joined by Daniel Sarmiento Ramírez-Escudero.

In August 2022, the four organisations filed lawsuits in the EU General Court for annulment of the Council’s approval of the Polish Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP).

They allege that the judicial milestones in the RRP are inadequate safeguards regarding the rule of law and constitute an unlawful regression below the level required by the established case law of the Court of Justice.

In June 2024, the General Court dismissed the lawsuits as inadmissible on the basis that the organisations lacked the “direct concern” necessary for legal standing.

The four organisations have now confirmed that they will appeal to the Court of Justice.

They say that, while the rule of law situation in Poland has improved since a change of government in 2023, judges targeted by unlawful sanctions by the previous regime have still not been rehabilitated.

They also say the General Court’s decision is out of step with developments in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, which recognised the importance of more extensive standing to representative organisations defending objectives of significant societal relevance in its recent KlimaSeniorinnen judgment.