2017-07-21

Poland Moves to End Communist Judicial System

Good luck finding an mainstream article that explains why Poland is reforming its judiciary. Almost every article is a one-sided condemnation of the Polish ruling party, labeling the move as an authoritarian power grab. What is the media trying to hide?

USAToday: Poland steps away from democracy, EU in judiciary reforms
However, many Poles support the current powers and actually say these reforms are a divorce from old communist judicial systems.

Tomasz Sakiewicz, the editor-in-chief of right-wing newspaper Gazeta Polska and a supporter of drastic judicial reforms, says these changes aren’t about controlling the judiciary.

“We want to change it, to reform because it comes from communist times,” he says. “It’s completely broken by corruption — a mafia system.”

Sakiewicz says most Poles think the courts need reform. An opinion poll in May found 63 percent of Polish citizens think the judiciary needs to make some serious changes.
The Poles are in the process of decommunization, following in Hungary's path.

Communism (progressivism) is the ruling ideology in the West though. Even the capitalists are against them.

FT: The EU has a moral obligation to act against Poland

WaPo is aghast: This is what the gradual erosion of rule of law looks like in Poland
During the 2015 campaign for parliamentary seats, PiS argued that failing to purge the judiciary of former communists and collaborators is a caricature of justice — and that the court system is precisely where communism remains entrenched.

PiS says it plans to “end Poland’s post-communist era” by transforming the court system. Poland’s court system is a complex four-level hierarchy with regional, district, appellate and the highest court. The Constitutional Tribunal stands separate from this hierarchy, evaluating the government’s legislation.
Poland's government is implementing a policy favored by the majority of the public. It is reforming an undemocratic institution filled with communist ideologues, replacing it with a more democratic system.

There is no real moral argument to be made. If Poland was progressive and reforming a judiciary stuffed with orthodox Catholics, the world media would be cheering the democratic reform, Poland stepping out of its past and into the present. Since it is communists on the losing end, and Catholics on the winning side, it is painted as authoritarianism.

All of this is taking place within the context of deteriorating social mood. The EU's response is to push Poland (and likely all of Eastern Europe) out of the union.

Guardian: Poland may be stripped of EU voting rights over judicial independence
The EU is on the brink of taking the nuclear option of stripping Poland of its voting rights in Brussels in response to plans by its rightwing government to “abolish” the independence of the country’s judiciary.

Frans Timmermans, the first vice-president of the European commission, accused Warsaw of seeking to put judges under full political control as he warned that the EU was “very close” to triggering article 7, a never-before-used sanction in the treaties that allows a member state’s voting rights in the council of ministers to be suspended.

Poland’s ruling rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS) has been in almost constant conflict with the European commission since it was elected. In recent weeks the Polish government has proposed a series of reforms that would give ministers power over the appointment of judges and members of the country’s supreme court.
The EU is still heading for a breakup.

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