crimethink
20th December 2017, 05:53 PM
Unelected, unaccountable dictators in black robes are part of what the EUSSR defines as "rule of law" and "democracy." I think I'll pass then.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2017/12/20/poland-adopts-judicial-overhaul-escalating-clash-with/peERYOUZXzcqpYrbnVvANP/story.html
Poland’s president signed sweeping legislation Wednesday to overhaul the country’s judicial system, a move critics say fundamentally undermines the rule of law in a nation that only three decades ago broke free from the yoke of the Soviet Union.
The new laws effectively put the Polish courts under the control of the right-wing governing party, Law and Justice. President Andrzej Duda signed them, defying a formal warning delivered hours earlier by the European Union, which called the legislation a “serious breach” of the core values on which the union was founded.
The warning by the commission, the executive arm of the European Union, invoked Article 7 of bloc’s founding treaty. The treaty includes provisions intended to ensure that the 28 member countries maintain “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and human rights.”
The signing of the law is unlikely to lead to any immediate punishment for Poland, like a suspension of its voting rights. For the bloc to issue such a sanction, the 27 other member states would have to agree, and Hungary has already vowed to veto such a step.
(...)
Poland’s president brushed aside those concerns in a speech to the nation Wednesday evening.
“This view that it’s an abuse of democratic standards is unfounded,” Duda insisted. “It’s the opposite. What is happening is a deepening of democracy. The judges will no longer rule themselves. They aren’t some extraordinary caste; they are servants of the Polish people.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2017/12/20/poland-adopts-judicial-overhaul-escalating-clash-with/peERYOUZXzcqpYrbnVvANP/story.html
Poland’s president signed sweeping legislation Wednesday to overhaul the country’s judicial system, a move critics say fundamentally undermines the rule of law in a nation that only three decades ago broke free from the yoke of the Soviet Union.
The new laws effectively put the Polish courts under the control of the right-wing governing party, Law and Justice. President Andrzej Duda signed them, defying a formal warning delivered hours earlier by the European Union, which called the legislation a “serious breach” of the core values on which the union was founded.
The warning by the commission, the executive arm of the European Union, invoked Article 7 of bloc’s founding treaty. The treaty includes provisions intended to ensure that the 28 member countries maintain “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and human rights.”
The signing of the law is unlikely to lead to any immediate punishment for Poland, like a suspension of its voting rights. For the bloc to issue such a sanction, the 27 other member states would have to agree, and Hungary has already vowed to veto such a step.
(...)
Poland’s president brushed aside those concerns in a speech to the nation Wednesday evening.
“This view that it’s an abuse of democratic standards is unfounded,” Duda insisted. “It’s the opposite. What is happening is a deepening of democracy. The judges will no longer rule themselves. They aren’t some extraordinary caste; they are servants of the Polish people.”