The article discusses the concept of judicial application of the law in the context of the rule of law. The considerations presented here provide an overview of the basic features of judicial application of the law, such as: internal and external independence of judge, the aspect of judicial appointment and constitutional guarantees for judges in Continental legal culture. This is followed by a presentation of some of the most important recent judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in which the court additionally presented more detailed criteria of the judicial type of law application from the perspective of the rule of law. The paper also presents an interpretative position concerning the interpretation of Article 187(1)(2) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland in the context of the staffing of the Nation- al Council of the Judiciary and the relationship of this issue to the problem of the
regularity of judicial appointments.