Public statements of high-ranking politicians expressing hostility towards and disdain of sexual minorities have become common in the recent years in Poland. But the problem of “LGBT-Free Zones” has given the topic a new constitutional quality.
Continue Reading →Unkenntnis und Unwille sind in Polen heute an der Tagesordnung: Unkenntnis darüber, wie das europäische Recht und die europäischen Institutionen funktionieren und Unwille, sich an die freiwillig eingegangenen europäischen Verpflichtungen zu halten. Wir sind Zeugen, wie in Polen die Grundprinzipien der EU untergraben werden. Wenn aber das Rechtssystem der EU in Polen nicht mehr wirksam ist, ist das: der Polexit. Die bedenkenlose Säuberung des Obersten Gerichts, schließlich die Aushebelung der Vorabentscheidung, die Einschüchterung der Richter durch Disziplinarverfahren, das alles ist leider bereits der Polexit. Richtig verstanden bedeutet der Polexit allerdings sehr viel mehr als die Nichtanerkennung des europäischen Rechts und die Angriffe auf die Gerichte.
Continue Reading →Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Poland’s government is refusing to announce an emergency state, presumably in order to go ahead with the Presidential election on 10 May. Instead, the ruling coalition in Poland has been presenting increasingly controversial proposals aimed at ensuring that the country’s PiS-aligned President will remain in office. The most recent one envisages a constitutional amendment which would extend the president’s term of office. This proposal is nothing but an attempt to blackmail the opposition: either vote for a constitutional change or be blamed for the consequences of holding a presidential election during the pandemic.
Continue Reading →There is no doubt that the essential state institutions should function as effectively as possible in the times of pandemic. It also means finding concrete and fast solutions provided in special statutes, aiming at alleviating social and economic consequences of the coronavirus outbreak. However, even when proceeding the bill known as Anti-crisis Shield (“Tarcza antykryzysowa”) that provides a financial aid for healthcare system, companies and different kinds of workers in Poland, the governing PiS party managed to introduce unconstitutional amendments to the bill.
Continue Reading →In Poland, the Law and Justice (PiS) government has opted not to use its constitutional power to declare a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 spreading. As Wojciech Sadurski explained, its motive is simple: not to postpone the Presidential election in Poland and thus increase the chances of the President-in-Office to win the second term. The question is whether the pandemic may cause invalidity of the election. If the answer is yes, as I suggest, the problem is who should be the judge of it. The chamber of the Polish Supreme Court that is empowered by law to do so does not give an ‘appearance of independence’, following the PiS’s so-called ‘reform’ of the judiciary.
Continue Reading →Various types of states of emergency have been, and in all likelihood will be, introduced or at least contemplated in different states of the world to cope with the COVID 19 crisis. Nowhere is this issue more lively than in Poland which is currently in the midst of the presidential election campaign – or rather “a sort of” election campaign of a somewhat bizarre character. It is a one-man campaign, leading up to the election which, by all standards, should not take place in a scheduled time. Except that the incumbent and his party seem not to notice it.
Continue Reading →Last week one of us, together with Gráinne de Burca, again put the spotlight on PiS and allies suing Wojciech Sadurski over some highly critical tweets. It led to a tremendous show of support. This support makes it a statement of the obvious that Sadurski’s trial is a blemish on the EU and every Member States that both so frequently pledge to take the rule of law seriously. And yet. His (first) trial took place yesterday, Wednesday 27 November, at the Warsaw district court. Here is an account of what we both witnessed, live and through live footage respectively.
Continue Reading →Just days before the trial against Wojciech Sadurski in Warsaw, we write to seek renewal of your support, and for your help in keeping the PiS strategy of coordinated legal harassment against him, and the threat of a criminal conviction and an award of damages against him as well as hefty legal fees, in the public eye. The party believes that it can ride out the storm, and that by ignoring the protests they will eventually disappear. But they will not.
Continue Reading →A call for an end to the repressive use of litigation by the Polish government and its supporters to punish freedom of speech.
Continue Reading →The forced retirement of Polish Supreme Court judges has been reversed by the Polish legislator. Should the EU Commission and the Court of Justice now end their infringement procedure against Poland, too? There are several reasons why they should not.
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