Bodnar withdrew Ziobro’s application to the Constitutional Tribunal. Can doctors breathe a sigh of relief?
“In the opinion of Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar, this motion was an attempt to undermine the idea of medical self-government and the principles of the code of medical ethics, and also violated the right to health protection,” it was stated.
“Today, Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar withdrew from the Constitutional Tribunal the request of November 16, 2023, addressed by Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro, in which, among others, the provisions defining the shape of the professional self-government of doctors and the principles of the code of medical ethics were questioned,” said Anna Adamiak, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General, on Wednesday.
Zbigniew Ziobro finally submitted an application to the tribunal
The application referred to in the statement was submitted to the Constitutional Tribunal in mid-November last year. It was submitted by former Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro. It concerned doctors being subject to only one professional self-government.
The basis for the question to the tribunal was whether the obligation to belong to a medical self-government and the existence of medical courts is consistent with the constitution. In the justification for the motion, we could read that “the legislator, when defining the shape of professional self-government for doctors, unjustifiably adopted its full uniformity.”
“It manifests itself on two levels. Firstly, only one local government was established for the medical profession. Secondly, the territorial criterion was adopted as the only criterion for creating individual local government units (with the exception of the Military Medical Chamber),” it was written.
Moreover, the applicant argued that the legislator “obliged members of medical chambers to comply with uniform principles of medical ethics, applicable to the entire self-government, the violation of which exposes a doctor to professional liability.”
Zbigniew Ziobro’s motion was considered by some of the medical community as an attempt to dissolve the medical self-government. It was assessed as a blow to the free professions.
Adam Bodnar does not agree with Zbigniew Ziobro’s decision
In a published statement, the spokeswoman recalled that the issue contained in the application – questioning the validity of the existence of a single local government and medical courts – became “the subject of widespread discussion during the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the opposition of some doctors regarding the validity of vaccinations.”
“At that time, a parliamentary team for the functioning of medical chambers was established in the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, and during its work, some provisions of the Act on medical chambers were questioned. The response to the presented doubts in this respect was an application to the Constitutional Tribunal,” the spokeswoman informs.
The statement also explains the reason for the decision to withdraw the application. “In the opinion of Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar, this motion was an attempt to undermine the idea of medical self-government and the principles of the code of medical ethics, and also violated the right to health protection,” we read in a statement published by Adamiak.
“Withdrawal of the application is justified by concern for the constitutional values of citizens and results in the termination of the proceedings before the Constitutional Tribunal,” it was emphasized.
