Instytucja ślubowania sędziowskiego w polskim porządku prawnym

Abstract

Judicial oath of office is a solemn declaration and attestation taken publicly in a prescribed form, by which a newly appointed judge obliges himself both to accomplish properly his professional duties and to respect essential values and principles pertinent to judicial deontology. The origin of the present institution dates back to times of ancient Rome, where it was called iusiurandum. The paper presents institution of judicial oath of office in the Polish legal order, especially since 1918 to nowadays. Over the span of nearly one century the analyzed institution has undergone relevant changes. In the interwar period the judicial oath of office lost its religious dimension. Up to this time the oath nominally had been taken to God, which was articulated in the following words: “I swear by Almighty God”. At present the oath’s text is secular, although a judge can optionally complete his swearing-in with the following invocation: “So help me God”. In the Second Polish Republic and in the People’s Republic of Poland judges took the oath before presidents of the particular types of courts or before Minister of Justice. Since 1989 the judicial oath is taken before the President of Poland, who at the same time appoints judges on the motion of the National Council of the Judiciary of Poland. In conjunction with the installation of communist government in Poland in 1944 the judicial oath’s words was submitted to political ideologization. This process reached its fullness on the ground of the 1985 statute. Ignoring the above-mentioned fact, one can state that the judicial oath’s text in the presented time frame has included similar rules and guidelines governing judicial behaviour, which can be classified into two groups. First category relates to relations between a judge on one side and the Polish state or the Polish Nation on the other side. By this part of the oath a judge expresses his patriotism toward homeland. Second category of rules refers to principles of judicial deontology, i.e. obligations functionally connected with jurisdictional activity. Judges in Poland solemnly swear to uphold the law, to fulfill judge’s duties conscientiously, to dispense justice lawfully and impartially according to their consciences, to keep state and official secret, and – finally – to be guided in their conduct as judges by principle of dignity and principle of fairness. Legal rules do not, apart from plain text, regulate the etiquette of taking the judicial oath of office. The course of swearing-in ceremony is in high degree a result of over twenty-one-year customary practice of the President’s Chancellery. There is a need, motivated by legal certainty and security, to fix, even if out of necessity only generally, in the form of a normative act both the form and the procedure of judicial swearing-in. One should also place a referral to the judicial oath of office in the Collection of Principles of Judge’s Professional Ethics because the oath embodies fundamental principles that guide every member of the judge’s fraternity. The author of the article postulates to determine in a statute a few further issues, such as consequences of the oath’s infringement (disciplinary punishments) or sanctions for refusing to take the oath (invalidity of appointment act). The taking of the judicial oath of office is a condition to the admission to administer justice, to authoritatively deciding cases. In other words this requirement constitutes conditio sine qua non of judge’s jurisdictional activity. Normative sense of the present institution coexists with its symbolic dimension as a source of professional identity. Every judge must remember that the oath is not a mere formality to be forgotten afterwards. It’s some kind of a sacred trust that judges should keep inviolable regardless of circumstances. Tenets of morality written in the text of the oath comprise a compass pointing at the best path of judicial career.