Africa Business Radio

The European Union’s top court has ordered Poland to pay 1 million euros a day over the country’s longstanding dispute with the bloc over judicial independence.The ruling by the Court of Justice came after the EU’s executive commission asked for financial penalties to ensure compliance with a ruling from July.Poland has been embroiled in a long-running dispute with Brussels over judicial reforms it says undermine the independence of courts. The row heated up in July when the Court of Justice ordered the country to suspend the controversial disciplinary chamber of its top court.The court says the penalty was necessary in order to avoid serious and irreparable harm to the legal order of the European Union and to the values on which that Union is founded, in particular, that of the rule of law.