23 December 2015
Chess-boxing around the Rule of Law: Polish Constitutionalism at Trial
In the conflict between the Polish government and the constitutional court, we are watching a sort of chess-boxing, a hybrid game consisting of rounds in chess and boxing, where the parties attempt to outsmart the opponent and if this doesn’t help, they simply punch. Contravention of the division of powers and disregard for the idea of limited government has repeatedly been perpetrated by the ruling party Law & Justice and “their” President Duda. It remains to be seen if the attempts made are understood by the perpetrators as a tool to facilitate party’s short-term objectives or as an ultimate goal to redesign Poland’s institutional order. Continue reading >>
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10 December 2015
Bruised, but not dead (yet): The Polish Constitutional Court has spoken
The current attack on the Polish Constitutional Court is unprecedented in scope, cold efficiency and intensity. It aims to paralyze and incapacitate the Court. Polish democracy is faced today with a crisis that has more to do with the lack of constitutional culture rather than deficiencies of the constitutional text. Europe will have its hands full with Poland in the days to come. Unfortunately, so far it has not shown much teeth in response to the constitutional shenanigans playing out in Poland. This must change or Warsaw will become another Budapest with Europe idly watching. Continue reading >>04 December 2015
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal under Siege
A constitutional crisis? A coup d’état? Whatever it is Poland is going through right now, the constitutional situation is far from normal. After a fierce political brawl about the election of five new judges to the Constitutional Tribunal, that same Tribunal declared yesterday the legal basis upon which two of them were elected unconstitutional. Continue reading >>23 November 2015
Midnight Judges: Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal Caught Between Political Fronts
Many Eastern European states have seen their once glorious constitutional courts politically delegitimized in recent years. Now, Poland might join them. Hasty attempts by the outgoing majority to fill the benches of the court with judges of their choosing, and constitutionally dubious attempts by the new majority to thwart those attempts and to tamper with constitutional procedural law, threaten to inflict fatal damage to the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and its integrity. Continue reading >>09 August 2012
How to Evade the Constitution: The Hungarian Constitutional Court’s Decision on Judicial Retirement Age, Part II
Part Two: “The System Remains” (Continued from Part 1: The […] Continue reading >>09 August 2012