8 ms·

I read in the newspaper today that the EU issued an ultimatum to Poland: get rid of the unlawful special court that deems itself above the EU law, or face reper

by dstick 5y ago

I read in the newspaper today that the EU issued an ultimatum to Poland: get rid of the unlawful special court that deems itself above the EU law, or face repercussions. Finally they're growing some teeth. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/european-commission-intends-to-set-ultimatum-for-poland/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/europea... However, after Googling for an online source, I came across this article about another ultimatum for justice reform in 2017, and things only got worse after that :-/ https://euobserver.com/justice/138627 https://euobserver.com/justice/138627

dogma1138 5y ago
It’s hard to issue these ultimatums when in Germany the constitution is supreme too and the courts would and do take it over EU law when there is conflict.
- trasz 5y ago
  Except they don't. Please don't spread polish government's propaganda.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    Except they do https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-prepares-legal-action-against-germany-over-ecb-ruling/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-prepares-legal-action-aga... Overall the EU has about the same number of procedures open against Germany as they do against Poland, both are pretty high on the list Germany is #5 Poland is #4.
    - trasz 5y ago
      Except they don't; there's no similarities between those cases other than the courts being involved. The German case has nothing to do with the government openly ignoring its own constitution.
    - volta83 5y ago
      While the German court ruled against the EU, the German government immediately complied with EU law. Those in the EU suing Germany for its court decision here are actually German, and are only doing this to establish legal precedent. This makes it a completely different situation than what’s going on with Hungary and Poland.
desine 5y ago
How terrible that local laws, written and enacted by the voting population they preside over, take precedent over international laws written and enacted by legislators several times more distantly removed from the population. Hopefully the UN gets enough funding to occupy the roles of state and municipal police soon. Then we can free the common man from the tyranny of local government.
- trasz 5y ago
  Erm, the root of the problem is that polish government is breaking polish law, in particular the constitution. It's not "polish constitution against EU", it's "polish government against polish constitution and the EU".
  - blfr 5y ago
    > polish government is breaking polish law, in particular the constitution This is either not true or impossible to tell because Polish constitution was really poorly written with very many issues being delegated to lower acts. The Constitutional Tribunal gets to freely decide what is or isn't against the constitution and current Tribunal judges are favourable to the gov. It's as if the US constitution was stitched from multiple Commerce Clauses. The SCOTUS could rewrite it on the fly (they already do to some extent).
- raverbashing 5y ago
  You're free to write all local laws you want and the rest of the world is free to not buy anything for you and give you one cent for anything.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  The whole point of international law is that countries choose to commit to following the same laws. There's no point signing any treaty if you're not planning on actually applying its legislation. If people they don't like the laws they've committed themselves to, they can choose not to follow them anymore. However, the advantages they receive in return, in this case the freedoms and economic benefits of being in the EU, will also disappear if they decide to play by their own rules. With the massive benefits Poland has gotten from the EU, I don't think it's in their interest to leave, especially since it doesn't have the negotiating power the UK had (and Brexit has been a series of catastrophes nonetheless). Nobody is forcing these people to follow foreign laws, it's just that they want the benefits without doing anything in return. The EU is not just a trade bloc, it's an institution to create a shared European ideal. They may not like the deal, but they're free to refuse it and negotiate a better one.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jollybean 5y ago
And how does the EU justify it's legal supremacy? Where do they get that right? By treaty? Or perhaps the European Court of Justice simply 'ruled' that it's laws were 'supreme' in a bizarre act of defining it's own jurisdiction outside of treaty agreements? Europeans never agreed to give the ECJ supremacy. The ECJ just 'took' that power. It's a baffling bit of legal history [1][2] and it demonstrates just how powerful these institutions can become outside of democratic norms. A quote: "The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself. The majority of national courts have generally recognized and accepted this principle, except for the part where European law outranks a member state's constitution. As a result, national courts have also reversed the right to review the conformity of EU law with national constitutional law." Because of this and the resulting vaguery, it's still not always perfectly clear which 'court' is supreme in exactly what ways. The Germans resolve that EU laws cannot contradict their Basic Law - to be determined by their own Supreme Court, which is kind of a backwards way of saying 'our national courts still have supremacy'. It would be pretty interesting to see Poland take on the ECJ in this case, because it might cause an EU level constitutional crisis as they'd probably challenge the legitimacy of the 'Supremacy' ruling from 1964 that set the precedent. It's not as clear cut as the headlines would have us believe, like for example a US State taking on the Supreme Court. Even in Canada, the provincial leaders invoke Constitutional shenanigans to make up their own laws that can't be rescinded by the constitution. We'll have to see what happens. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/primacy_of_eu_law.html https://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/primacy_of_eu_law... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law
- mariusor 5y ago
  In your post you seem to imply that European Law has precedence over national laws in all cases. As your first link details a couple paragraphs down, it's not so, it only covers those where nations submit to EU sovereignty explicitly: > It should be noted that the primacy of EU law only applies where EU countries have ceded sovereignty to the EU — fields such as the single market, environment, transport, etc. However, it does not apply in areas such as social policy and taxation.

by dstick 5y ago

dogma1138 5y ago

It’s hard to issue these ultimatums when in Germany the constitution is supreme too and the courts would and do take it over EU law when there is conflict.

trasz 5y ago
Except they don't. Please don't spread polish government's propaganda.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Except they do https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-prepares-legal-action-against-germany-over-ecb-ruling/ https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-prepares-legal-action-aga... Overall the EU has about the same number of procedures open against Germany as they do against Poland, both are pretty high on the list Germany is #5 Poland is #4.
  - trasz 5y ago
    Except they don't; there's no similarities between those cases other than the courts being involved. The German case has nothing to do with the government openly ignoring its own constitution.
  - volta83 5y ago
    While the German court ruled against the EU, the German government immediately complied with EU law. Those in the EU suing Germany for its court decision here are actually German, and are only doing this to establish legal precedent. This makes it a completely different situation than what’s going on with Hungary and Poland.

desine 5y ago

How terrible that local laws, written and enacted by the voting population they preside over, take precedent over international laws written and enacted by legislators several times more distantly removed from the population. Hopefully the UN gets enough funding to occupy the roles of state and municipal police soon. Then we can free the common man from the tyranny of local government.

trasz 5y ago
Erm, the root of the problem is that polish government is breaking polish law, in particular the constitution. It's not "polish constitution against EU", it's "polish government against polish constitution and the EU".
- blfr 5y ago
  > polish government is breaking polish law, in particular the constitution This is either not true or impossible to tell because Polish constitution was really poorly written with very many issues being delegated to lower acts. The Constitutional Tribunal gets to freely decide what is or isn't against the constitution and current Tribunal judges are favourable to the gov. It's as if the US constitution was stitched from multiple Commerce Clauses. The SCOTUS could rewrite it on the fly (they already do to some extent).
raverbashing 5y ago
You're free to write all local laws you want and the rest of the world is free to not buy anything for you and give you one cent for anything.
jeroenhd 5y ago
The whole point of international law is that countries choose to commit to following the same laws. There's no point signing any treaty if you're not planning on actually applying its legislation. If people they don't like the laws they've committed themselves to, they can choose not to follow them anymore. However, the advantages they receive in return, in this case the freedoms and economic benefits of being in the EU, will also disappear if they decide to play by their own rules. With the massive benefits Poland has gotten from the EU, I don't think it's in their interest to leave, especially since it doesn't have the negotiating power the UK had (and Brexit has been a series of catastrophes nonetheless). Nobody is forcing these people to follow foreign laws, it's just that they want the benefits without doing anything in return. The EU is not just a trade bloc, it's an institution to create a shared European ideal. They may not like the deal, but they're free to refuse it and negotiate a better one.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jollybean 5y ago

And how does the EU justify it's legal supremacy? Where do they get that right? By treaty? Or perhaps the European Court of Justice simply 'ruled' that it's laws were 'supreme' in a bizarre act of defining it's own jurisdiction outside of treaty agreements? Europeans never agreed to give the ECJ supremacy. The ECJ just 'took' that power. It's a baffling bit of legal history [1][2] and it demonstrates just how powerful these institutions can become outside of democratic norms. A quote: "The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself. The majority of national courts have generally recognized and accepted this principle, except for the part where European law outranks a member state's constitution. As a result, national courts have also reversed the right to review the conformity of EU law with national constitutional law." Because of this and the resulting vaguery, it's still not always perfectly clear which 'court' is supreme in exactly what ways. The Germans resolve that EU laws cannot contradict their Basic Law - to be determined by their own Supreme Court, which is kind of a backwards way of saying 'our national courts still have supremacy'. It would be pretty interesting to see Poland take on the ECJ in this case, because it might cause an EU level constitutional crisis as they'd probably challenge the legitimacy of the 'Supremacy' ruling from 1964 that set the precedent. It's not as clear cut as the headlines would have us believe, like for example a US State taking on the Supreme Court. Even in Canada, the provincial leaders invoke Constitutional shenanigans to make up their own laws that can't be rescinded by the constitution. We'll have to see what happens. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/primacy_of_eu_law.html https://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/primacy_of_eu_law... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

mariusor 5y ago
In your post you seem to imply that European Law has precedence over national laws in all cases. As your first link details a couple paragraphs down, it's not so, it only covers those where nations submit to EU sovereignty explicitly: > It should be noted that the primacy of EU law only applies where EU countries have ceded sovereignty to the EU — fields such as the single market, environment, transport, etc. However, it does not apply in areas such as social policy and taxation.