Judging Poland’s Democracy Protesters do what the EU can’t and force their leaders to U-turn.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/judging-polands-democracy-1500506572
Good news from Poland: Democracy lives despite an uproar over the judiciary. That’s something to note for critics who see a threat to European values in the current ruckus in Warsaw.
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has embroiled itself in efforts to rein in judges since winning 2015’s election. Its latest gambit is to try to fire all the Supreme Court justices, giving the Justice Minister authority to rehire its favorites. PiS also last week passed a law giving Parliament final say over membership of the National Judiciary Council (KRS), the independent body that nominates judges.
PiS says unaccountable judges thwart the will of voters by nixing laws passed by Parliament—including PiS initiatives the last time the party held power from 2005 to 2007. That’s debatable, but it doesn’t help that the departing Civic Platform leadership in 2015 tried to rush a series of lame-duck appointments to the Supreme Court, handing PiS an early opportunity to stir public frustration with the judiciary.
Such debates are as old as the hills—judicial power, appointments and tenure preoccupied America’s Founders—and some perspective would help. Foreign activists and the European Commission in Brussels fret that PiS is a threat to democracy. They’re right that the proposals are heavy-handed. Yet there’s no perfect method for balancing judicial independence and democratic sovereignty. Brussels doesn’t have a democratic mandate to impose its view, which leans more toward judicial independence than democratic oversight.
More important are the protests from thousands of Poles in Warsaw telling their government that PiS’s court plans don’t represent the balance those voters want. The uproar has caused President Andrzej Duda, a former PiS politician whose office is usually ceremonial, to threaten to veto the Judiciary Council law.
Mr. Duda’s proposed compromise would require a two-thirds parliamentary majority to approve nominations to the commission, depriving PiS of its ability to stack the body with the simple majority it won in 2015 with less than 38% of the vote. Now Parliament, and voters, will decide.
It’s hard to find examples in history of independent judiciaries thwarting determined tyrants. What matters more is resistance from citizens demanding democratic rights. By that standard, this week’s peaceful protests—which led to Mr. Duda’s U-turn—show Polish democracy is resisting PiS’s overreach.
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