Erstmals hat die Europäische Kommission einen Rechtsstaatlichkeitsbericht vorgelegt. Das gesamte Werk umfasst rund 60 unmittelbar dazugehörige Dokumente (Dateien). Weitere wie die Länderberichte des Europarats kommen hinzu.
In den Texten wird auf zahlreiche weitere frühere Dokumente der Kommission, des Rats, des Parlaments, des EuGH, verschiedener Agenturen der EU und mehrerer NGOs (etc.) sowie auf Ergebnisse der Erhebungen von Eurobarometer verwiesen.
Der Bericht wurde in Zusammenarbeit mit den EU-Mitgliedsstaaten erstellt, deren Selbstdarstellungen sind ebenso zugänglich wie die Ergebnisberichte der Kommission.
Es gibt eine 34 Seiten starke Zusammenfassung sowie Länderabstracts von jeweils 1 Seite. Die Methodologie wird offengelegt. Es wurden zusätzlich Berichte der Europäischen Grundrechteagentur, des Europarats (27 Länderberichte) sowie weiterer Netzwerke und Organisationen eingeholt: “the European Association of Judges, the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, the Network of Corruption Prevention Agencies, the European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists, the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions, etc.”
Untersucht wurden folgende Felder: Justizsysteme, Korruptionsbekämpfung (Rahmengebungen), Medienpluralismus und Medienfreiheit, System von Kontrolle und Gegenkontrolle (Gesetzgebungsprozesse).
Die Frage, was in der EU „Rechtsstaatlichkeit“ bedeutet, wird wie folgt beantwortet (S. 1): „Die in Artikel 2 des Vertrags über die Europäische Union verankerte Rechtsstaatlichkeit ist einer der Werte, die allen Mitgliedstaaten gemeinsam sind. Nach dem Rechtsstaatsprinzip muss jegliche Staatsgewalt in den Grenzen von Recht und Gesetz und im Einklang mit den Werten der Demokratie und den Grundrechten unter der Kontrolle unabhängiger und unparteiischer Gerichte ausgeübt werden. Die Rechtsstaatlichkeit umfasst unter anderem folgende Grundsätze: Rechtmäßigkeit, hierzu zählen transparente, auf der Rechenschaftspflicht beruhende, demokratische und pluralistische Gesetzgebungsverfahren, Rechtssicherheit, Verbot der willkürlichen Ausübung exekutiver Gewalt, wirksamer Rechts- und Grundrechtsschutz sowie gerichtliche Überprüfung von Maßnahmen der Exekutive durch unabhängige und unparteiische Gerichte, Gewaltenteilung und die Gleichheit vor dem Gesetz. Diese Grundsätze wurden vom Gerichtshof der Europäischen Union und vom Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte anerkannt. Darüber hinaus hat der Europarat Standards erarbeitet sowie Stellungnahmen und Empfehlungen herausgegeben, die etablierte Leitlinien zur Förderung und Wahrung der Rechtsstaatlichkeit bieten.”
Im Folgenden wird aus den Länderabstracts zitiert, die in prägnanter Weise die Defizite zusammenfassen. Ungarn ist das Land, in dem es insgesamt um die Rechtsstaatlichkeit am schlechtesten bestellt ist, gefolgt von Polen. In mehreren Ländern wurden Gesetzgebungsprozesse abgekürzt bzw. beschleunigt und die vorgesehenen Beteiligungen umgangen. Berücksichtigt werden auch Verhaltensweisen in der (anhaltenden) Covid-19 Krise.
Ungarn (S. 21):
“Over the past years, judicial independence in Hungary has been raised by EU institutions as a source of concern, including in the Article 7(1) TEU procedure initiated by the European Parliament. The call for strengthening judicial independence, made in the context of the European Semester, remains to be addressed.”
Justiz:
“In particular, the independent National Judicial Council faces challenges in counter-balancing the powers of the President of the National Office for the Judiciary in charge of the management of the courts. Developments related to the Supreme Court (Kúria) also raise concerns, notably its decision to declare unlawful a request for preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice. New rules allow for appointment to the Supreme Court of members of the Constitutional Court, elected by Parliament, outside the normal procedure, and lower the eligibility criteria for the Supreme Court President. As regards efficiency and quality, the justice system performs well in terms of the length of proceedings and has a high level of digitalisation.”
Korruptionsbekämpfung:
“The institutional anti-corruption framework is shared among different bodies. Deficient independent control mechanisms and tight interconnections between politics and certain national businesses are conducive to corruption. When serious allegations arise, there is a systematic lack of determined action to investigate and prosecute corruption cases involving high-level officials or their immediate circle.
This has been raised in the European Semester and by GRECO in view of the lack of commitment to comply with its recommendations. The verification of assets and interests declarations may be improved as regards systematic checks and independent oversight. Whilst the regulation of lobbying remains incomplete, corruption prevention policies have focused on integrity in state administration and law-enforcement agencies. The shrinking possibilities of civic oversight in the context of restrictions to media freedom, a hostile environment for civil society organisations and constant new challenges in the application of the transparency and access to public information rules further weaken the anti-corruption framework.”
Medienfreiheit:
“The independence and effectiveness of the Media Council is at risk. Transparency of media ownership is not fully guaranteed. Media concentration via the creation of the Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA) conglomerate increased risks to media pluralism. Significant amounts of state advertising channelled to pro-government outlets have permitted the Government to exert indirect political influence over the media. Independent media outlets face systematic obstruction and intimidation, while a trend of economic take-over of such outlets raises additional concern.”
Gesetzgebungsprozesse (Kontrolle und Gegenkontrolle):
“The transparency and quality of the legislative process is a source of concern as the use of public consultations and impact assessments has diminished. The new possibility for public authorities to challenge final court decisions in the Constitutional Court raises questions of legal certainty. The weakening of independent institutions and the increased pressure on civil society further affect checks and balances. The Court of Justice found that the legislation on the transparency of foreign-funded civil society organisations is incompatible with EU law. Legislative measures required to execute the judgment are under preparation.”
Polen (S. 25):
Justiz:
“Poland’s justice reforms since 2015 have been a major source of controversy, both domestically and at EU level, and have raised serious concerns, several of which persist. The reforms, impacting the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Court, ordinary courts, the National Council for the Judiciary and the prosecution service, have increased the influence of the executive and legislative powers over the justice system and therefore weakened judicial independence. This led the Commission to launch the procedure under Article 7(1) TEU in 2017, which is still under consideration by the Council. In 2019 and 2020, the Commission launched two new infringement procedures to safeguard judicial independence and the Court of Justice of the EU has granted interim measures to suspend the powers of the Su-preme Court’s Disciplinary Chamber with regard to disciplinary cases concerning judges.”
Korruptionsbekämpfung:
“(…) Concerns also exist over the independence of the main institutions responsible for preventing and fighting corruption, considering in particular the subordination of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau to the executive and the fact that the Minister of Justice is at the same time the Prosecutor General.
Concerns also exist over the independence of the main institutions responsible for preventing and fighting corruption, considering in particular the subordination of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau to the executive and the fact that the Minister of Justice is at the same time the Prosecutor General.”
Medienfreiheit:
“The Polish legal framework concerning media pluralism is based both on constitutional safeguards and sectorial legislation. Relevant safeguards for the media regulator, the National Broadcasting Council, appear to be in place, however some concerns regarding its independence have been raised. The role of the regulator has been also reduced by the 2016 reform, which assigned the competences over the management of the Polish public media to a National Media Council (RMN). The legal framework on media ownership transparency is not equally applicable to all media actors. With regard to the protec-tion of journalists, the criminalisation of insulting public officials remains problematic.”
Gesetzgebungsprozesse (Kontrolle und Gegenkontrolle):
“Other components of the system of checks and balances are also under pressure. Reforms have been adopted through expedited legislative procedures with limited consultation of stakeholders or oppor-tunities for the opposition to play its role in the law-making process. Poland has a vibrant civil society and strong professional associations of judges and prosecutors, which participate in the public debate. Nevertheless, organisations have been subject to unfavourable statements by politicians. Despite the difficult environment, the Ombudsman has continued to play a key role as a rule of law safeguard.”
