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Regarding the majority party of the coalition which he is governing with. The party has caused what constitutional law scholar Wojciech Sadurski termed a "cons

Regarding the majority party of the coalition which he is governing with. The party has caused what constitutional law scholar Wojciech Sadurski termed a "constitutional breakdown"[58] by packing the Constitutional Court with its supporters, undermining parliamentary procedure, and reducing the president's and prime minister's offices in favor of power being wielded extra-constitutionally by party leader Jarosław Kaczyński.[46] After eliminating constitutional checks, the government then moved to curtail the activities of NGOs and independent media, restrict freedom of speech and assembly, and reduce the qualifications required for civil service jobs in order to fill these positions with party loyalists.[46][59] The media law was changed to give the governing party control of the state media, which was turned into a partisan outlet, with dissenting journalists fired from their jobs.[46][60] Due to these political changes, Poland has been termed an "illiberal democracy",[61][62] "plebiscitarian authoritarianism",[63] or "velvet dictatorship with a façade of democracy".[64] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Justice#In_majority_government:_2015%E2%80%93present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Justice#In_majority_go...

jariel 6y ago
This comment misrepresents the situation by failing to indicate that the 'Constitutional Crisis' started before the current Law and Justice government took power by the previous governments anti-constitutional actions of trying to appoint Constitutional Court judges ahead of the end of their terms. For a summary of events: [1] Imagine if Barack Obama / George Bush decided to go ahead and punt some SCOTUS members ahead of the end of their terms, because they were afraid they were going to lose his upcoming elections? Imagine what what the consequences would be. 'Law and Justice' , after having won elections came in and did some nasty things (which you point out) and were sanctioned by the EU for it, however, it's hypocritical that the group that initially broke the law on a very fundamental issue were not also sanctioned. I don't remotely support any of this, but it's important to consider that this didn't just happen out of thin air. This 'free speech' bill is an interesting political issue, I wonder how much of this is pointed at the local population, or how much of it is trying to obtain some populist goodwill in other EU nations ... or if it's trying to gain some kind of 'moral high ground' leverage in their current 'issues' with the EU. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Polish_Constitutional_Court_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Polish_Constitutional_Cou...
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  Well Obama did ask Bader-Ginsburg to step down when democrats had control of the senate (I think she’d only had cancer once at the time), but I guess you’re referring to something stronger than just asking judges to step down. I feel like the US Supreme Court nomination system only works through a combination of frequent changes of power and most judges believing in the system and following the unwritten part of the constitution, and that the US example isn’t really a good one to copy in other democracies.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    What happened is roughly this: in Poland's Constitutional Tribunal (which is as close of an equivalent of US Supreme Court as you can get in a country with a civil law system), the judges are not elected for life, but only for fixed term. As the term of the elected government was coming to an end, so were the terms of 5 of the justices in the Tribunal. However, two of these terms ended within the elected government's term, and three after it ended. As a result, the ruling party (PO) had a clear right to nominate 2 justices, and hardly any right to nominate the other three. It decided to nominate all 5 nevertheless. The party that won the subsequent election, PiS, refused to recognize any of the 5 justices nominated by PO, and nominated 5 of their own. What happened afterwards you can read in the Wikipedia article.
    - didibus 6y ago
      Did both of those things happen through some loophole? Or is the elected party just able to kind of do whatever they want unstopped?
      - xyzzyz 6y ago
        As far as I can tell, neither of these actions was based on any “loophole”. However, the nature of the rule of law is that it only works as long as everyone plays by the rules. When the government decides it does no longer has to play by the rules, there isn’t much that can be done to oppose them, as they still hold all the power, and are presumed to hold political authority.
anonunivgrad 6y ago
You're only really a liberal democracy if the ruling elite can coerce private actors to take the repressive actions instead of doing it officially. You must also allow your civil service to be an unaccountable branch of government controlled by the professional managerial class and unresponsive to the commands of elected leadership (unless they're from the correct side). Furthermore, you must allow lawyers to use the judiciary to rewrite laws to suit their political preferences (e.g. your Constitution must be found to guarantee the right to gay marriage, an idea laughable to people who wrote it and to everyone until 15 years ago). Finally, you must protect all classes of people from unjust termination and unwarranted denial of service except for everyone whose political views align with the wrong half of the country. Thank God we live in a real liberal democracy.
- bigfudge 6y ago
  Gay marriage has a popular majority in the UK and Ireland in both polls and referenda. Is it that different in the US? Interpreting old documents is hard, and where there is silence or substantial ambiguity it seems right to err on the side of popular opinion.
  - anonunivgrad 6y ago
    You can't really defend the US Supreme Court's actions on gay marriage from any legal viewpoint other than "because five justices said so" and "what are you gonna do about it." Popular opinion is not the talisman of judicial interpretation. If the public wants its way, they can vote for it. For what it's worth, the public did not support gay marriage until after the federal courts made it a fait accompli. E.g. In a referendum, California voted to ban gay marriage in 2008. What the federal courts in America did is overturn the standing will of the people as it existed in the laws of the majority of US states.
    - eropple 6y ago
      What "the federal courts in America" did is state that the rights of other human beings are not up for a vote.
pacificat0r 6y ago
A similar stupid law was proposed by a Romanian minister some years ago but with the goal of stopping you calling people (basically ministers) idiots on website comments. They eventually realized it's not enforceable and it just created some fuss. The reason that died as it started is because there's no way how such a thing ever work or be enforced. Does it not matter where I host my site? What can Poland do about my website hosted in UK (or any other country)? At worst this just destroys any hosting services that operate in that country.
Barrin92 6y ago
Yep the government has for a while been dismantling any opposition by stacking the courts, replacing critical state media, attacking journalists and so on. The support for this kind of law is actually just consequent because social media is the platform that lends itself most to riling up a mob. It's simple majoritarianism, rallying a hyper-loyal voter-base and disadvantaging scholars, intellectuals, scientists and so on.

jariel 6y ago

This comment misrepresents the situation by failing to indicate that the 'Constitutional Crisis' started before the current Law and Justice government took power by the previous governments anti-constitutional actions of trying to appoint Constitutional Court judges ahead of the end of their terms. For a summary of events: [1] Imagine if Barack Obama / George Bush decided to go ahead and punt some SCOTUS members ahead of the end of their terms, because they were afraid they were going to lose his upcoming elections? Imagine what what the consequences would be. 'Law and Justice' , after having won elections came in and did some nasty things (which you point out) and were sanctioned by the EU for it, however, it's hypocritical that the group that initially broke the law on a very fundamental issue were not also sanctioned. I don't remotely support any of this, but it's important to consider that this didn't just happen out of thin air. This 'free speech' bill is an interesting political issue, I wonder how much of this is pointed at the local population, or how much of it is trying to obtain some populist goodwill in other EU nations ... or if it's trying to gain some kind of 'moral high ground' leverage in their current 'issues' with the EU. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Polish_Constitutional_Court_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Polish_Constitutional_Cou...

dan-robertson 6y ago
Well Obama did ask Bader-Ginsburg to step down when democrats had control of the senate (I think she’d only had cancer once at the time), but I guess you’re referring to something stronger than just asking judges to step down. I feel like the US Supreme Court nomination system only works through a combination of frequent changes of power and most judges believing in the system and following the unwritten part of the constitution, and that the US example isn’t really a good one to copy in other democracies.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  What happened is roughly this: in Poland's Constitutional Tribunal (which is as close of an equivalent of US Supreme Court as you can get in a country with a civil law system), the judges are not elected for life, but only for fixed term. As the term of the elected government was coming to an end, so were the terms of 5 of the justices in the Tribunal. However, two of these terms ended within the elected government's term, and three after it ended. As a result, the ruling party (PO) had a clear right to nominate 2 justices, and hardly any right to nominate the other three. It decided to nominate all 5 nevertheless. The party that won the subsequent election, PiS, refused to recognize any of the 5 justices nominated by PO, and nominated 5 of their own. What happened afterwards you can read in the Wikipedia article.
  - didibus 6y ago
    Did both of those things happen through some loophole? Or is the elected party just able to kind of do whatever they want unstopped?
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      As far as I can tell, neither of these actions was based on any “loophole”. However, the nature of the rule of law is that it only works as long as everyone plays by the rules. When the government decides it does no longer has to play by the rules, there isn’t much that can be done to oppose them, as they still hold all the power, and are presumed to hold political authority.

anonunivgrad 6y ago

You're only really a liberal democracy if the ruling elite can coerce private actors to take the repressive actions instead of doing it officially. You must also allow your civil service to be an unaccountable branch of government controlled by the professional managerial class and unresponsive to the commands of elected leadership (unless they're from the correct side). Furthermore, you must allow lawyers to use the judiciary to rewrite laws to suit their political preferences (e.g. your Constitution must be found to guarantee the right to gay marriage, an idea laughable to people who wrote it and to everyone until 15 years ago). Finally, you must protect all classes of people from unjust termination and unwarranted denial of service except for everyone whose political views align with the wrong half of the country. Thank God we live in a real liberal democracy.

bigfudge 6y ago
Gay marriage has a popular majority in the UK and Ireland in both polls and referenda. Is it that different in the US? Interpreting old documents is hard, and where there is silence or substantial ambiguity it seems right to err on the side of popular opinion.
- anonunivgrad 6y ago
  You can't really defend the US Supreme Court's actions on gay marriage from any legal viewpoint other than "because five justices said so" and "what are you gonna do about it." Popular opinion is not the talisman of judicial interpretation. If the public wants its way, they can vote for it. For what it's worth, the public did not support gay marriage until after the federal courts made it a fait accompli. E.g. In a referendum, California voted to ban gay marriage in 2008. What the federal courts in America did is overturn the standing will of the people as it existed in the laws of the majority of US states.
  - eropple 6y ago
    What "the federal courts in America" did is state that the rights of other human beings are not up for a vote.

pacificat0r 6y ago

A similar stupid law was proposed by a Romanian minister some years ago but with the goal of stopping you calling people (basically ministers) idiots on website comments. They eventually realized it's not enforceable and it just created some fuss. The reason that died as it started is because there's no way how such a thing ever work or be enforced. Does it not matter where I host my site? What can Poland do about my website hosted in UK (or any other country)? At worst this just destroys any hosting services that operate in that country.

Barrin92 6y ago

Yep the government has for a while been dismantling any opposition by stacking the courts, replacing critical state media, attacking journalists and so on. The support for this kind of law is actually just consequent because social media is the platform that lends itself most to riling up a mob. It's simple majoritarianism, rallying a hyper-loyal voter-base and disadvantaging scholars, intellectuals, scientists and so on.