{"id":4547,"date":"2023-10-14T10:06:08","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T09:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=4547"},"modified":"2025-06-09T10:09:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T09:09:55","slug":"poland-allowed-to-violate-rule-of-law-if-ruled-by-pro-eu-liberals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2023\/10\/14\/poland-allowed-to-violate-rule-of-law-if-ruled-by-pro-eu-liberals\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland allowed to violate rule of law if ruled by pro-EU liberals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Tusk has overtly claimed in recent months that in case of electoral victory on October 15, as prime minister of Poland he will disregard all laws passed by the Polish parliament since 2015 which he finds to have been adopted in violation of the Polish constitution and\/or EU law. For this reason, revoking unwanted laws will not require any debates or votes in the newly elected parliament.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An article by Olivier Bault originally published on Sovereignty.pl. To read the full version on Sovereignty.pl, please\u00a0click here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if they win the elections on October 15 and can form a governing coalition under the leadership of Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and former president of the European Council, the liberals and the left in Poland will likely not have the necessary three-fifths majority in parliament to overturn possible presidential vetoes. President Andrzej Duda, a Law and Justice (PiS) politician, was reelected in 2020 and will, God willing, remain in place until 2025.<\/p>\n

But this is not really a problem in the eyes of Tusk, who seems to believe that if he heads the Polish government, Brussels will no longer bother so much about\u00a0respect for the rule of law\u00a0in that country.<\/p>\n

Good for him! He has overtly claimed in recent months that, as prime minister, he will disregard all laws passed by the Polish parliament since 2015 which he finds to have been adopted in violation of the Polish constitution and\/or EU law. For this reason, according to Tusk, revoking unwanted laws will not require any debates or votes in the newly elected parliament.<\/p>\n

As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said when Tusk returned to Poland: \u201cDear Donald, you embody our values. Now you return to your home country to stand up for them.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Great meeting with\u00a0@donaldtusk\u00a0at the\u00a0@EPP\u00a0congress in Rotterdam.<\/p>\n

Dear Donald, you embody our values.<\/p>\n

Now you return to your home country to stand up for them.<\/p>\n

Many thanks for your tireless work as EPP President.#EPPRotterdam\u00a0pic.twitter.com\/A8IDnXxpIy<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen)\u00a0June 1, 2022<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The German president of the European Commission then expressed her wish to see her \u201cdear Donald\u201d soon get back his former post of prime minister of Poland.<\/p>\n

About those values, concerning respect for democracy and the rule of law, on which EU officials and Von der Leyen like to lecture member states and Poland and Hungary in particular, here is\u00a0what Donald Tusk said\u00a0during a meeting with voters in March this year:<\/p>\n

\u201cBelieve me, it\u2019s not that complicated to restore legality in various areas of life in those places, on those issues, where, not only in my opinion, PiS introduced changes breaking the law \u2013 whether it be the Constitution or EU laws. (\u2026) I know that there will be lots of critics, but, if it depends on me, I will certainly not back down. I will consider decisions that have violated Polish law, the Polish Constitution, and EU law to be, by definition, invalid.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We understand it will be a completely arbitrary one-man decision, taken by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and that no legislation will have to go through parliament to invalidate the laws enacted by the two previous parliaments (elected, respectively, in 2015 and 2019).<\/p>\n

In the same way, Donald Tusk has the firm intention of canceling the judicial reforms approved by the Polish parliament in 2017 and later \u201cwithout having to wait for President Duda to kindly sign<\/em>\u201d the new majority\u2019s bills into law, that is, without acting in a lawful and democratic manner through the usual legislative process. And he will, in passing, dismiss judges appointed when he was no longer prime minister of Poland. At least, that is what he has been claiming he would do.<\/p>\n

Here, for example, is\u00a0what Tusk said\u00a0during a meeting with voters in November 2022:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the most important thing is to work closely with Polish judges and courts, as well as with EU courts. Most of the decisions destroying the Polish judiciary will be reversed without waiting for President Duda\u2019s kind signature. Because most of these decisions were decisions against the Polish Constitution, against Polish law, against EU law. At least those decisions regarding judges\u2019 appointments and promotions, as well as the structures they have created, are legally invalid. It will not require some detailed laws to restore the rule of law in Poland.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same spirit, Donald Tusk, if he becomes Poland\u2019s next prime minister, intends to \u201cfind tools\u201d to make \u201charsh, unequivocal decisions concerning the Constitutional Tribunal, the judges who have been dismissed [through disciplinary procedures], the false chambers [of the Supreme Court] and the neo-Judicial Council.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNeo,\u201d by the way, is the prefix used by the liberal left\u2019s opposition leaders and media outlets whenever they talk of the country\u2019s national judicial council, the KRS (Krajowa Rada S\u0105downictwa<\/em>),\u00a0after the 2017 reform\u00a0passed by parliament. Similarly, to call into question the legitimacy of all new judges, they talk about \u201cneo-judges\u201d when referring to the judges appointed by President Duda among candidates proposed by this \u201cneo-KRS.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, when reforming the judiciary that has been reformed by the current conservative majority, Tusk will do what is necessary so that his reforms \u201cdo not get bogged down in endless debates and so that most of the decisions [his government] have to make do not depend on the good or bad will of President Duda.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

The reformed KRS\u00a0was ruled in conformity with the Polish constitution\u00a0by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal in March 2019, but,\u00a0with active support from the European Commission\u00a0and other EU institutions, Tusk\u2019s Civic Platform has maintained that this tribunal is unlawful and any of its rulings enacted since 2016 can simply be ignored.<\/p>\n

Already prior to the 2019 elections, in which the PiS-led coalition renewed its absolute majority in the Sejm, Tusk\u2019s PO promised to simply throw out of the Constitutional Tribunal three out of fifteen sitting judges. Their appointment was disputed amid a row originally caused by the PO\u2019s attempt to appoint judges in advance in the face of their looming electoral defeat in 2015. Polish constitutional judges are elected by the Sejm, with a simple majority vote, for a non-renewable period of nine years.<\/p>\n

Here, for example, is what MP Micha\u0142 Szczerba, an important figure in Tusk\u2019s Civic Platform,\u00a0said in 2018\u00a0about his country\u2019s Constitutional Tribunal:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will remove people from it who are not judges. I\u2019m talking about the three fake judges who shouldn\u2019t be in it, and they will certainly have to leave.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same interview, Szczerba further said about the Judicial Council: \u201cThose people who, at [Justice Minister] Ziobro\u2019s instigation, entered the current National Judicial Council must be aware that this is a short-lived adventure and they will be removed.<\/em>\u201d He also promised that all the judges appointed to the Supreme Court after the 2017 judicial reforms would be dismissed.<\/p>\n

But PiS then won the 2019 parliamentary election, renewing its absolute majority in the Sejm.<\/p>\n

We can now see that Donald Tusk\u2019s Civic Platform, in the run-up to the parliamentary elections due to take place on October 15, has not renounced its plans to dictatorially remove the judges who were appointed while the conservatives were in government. Indeed, Tusk\u2019s party, which is a member of the center-right European People\u2019s Party, to which the European Commission president also belongs, makes no secret of its intent to proceed by arbitrary decisions of the executive branch, without going through a lawful legislative process, which President Duda might block with his veto power enshrined in the Polish Constitution.<\/p>\n

Whatever one thinks of the Polish United Right\u2019s judicial reforms, they were at least lawfully enacted by parliament.<\/p>\n

In July 2022, in the city of Radom, Donald Tusk also announced that when he becomes prime minister he will have the Polish central bank\u2019s chairman removed without going through the normal procedure, just because he and his friends consider that Adam Glapi\u0144ski\u2019s appointment was flawed from the start and that it was a political appointment. Asked by a journalist how concretely Tusk intended to proceed to get Glapi\u0144ski out of the central bank, the Civic Platform\u2019s vice-chair and former defense minister Tomasz Siemoniak\u00a0explained\u00a0to a bewildered journalist that some \u201cstrong men will convince him.\u201d<\/p>\n

On July 8, 2022, Glapi\u0144ski held a press conference, during which he reacted to the open threats expressed by the two PO leaders: \u201cSiemoniak was kind enough to say that \u2018strong people\u2019 will come and get the chairman out (\u2026) I would find it really frightening if Poland entered such a period in its history that strong people would remove officials they don\u2019t like from government institutions. I hope this will not happen.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not the first time Donald Tusk\u2019s Civic Platform has shown its contempt for the principle of an independent central bank. So they know by experience that, being pro-immigration and pro-LGBT Eurofederalists like the Eurocrats in Brussels, they can enjoy full impunity in that regard, in contrast to the current conservative majority.<\/p>\n

(\u2026)<\/p>\n

Brussels has been attacking the Morawiecki government and its parliamentary majority for years, going as far as\u00a0to block the funds promised to Poland as part of the Next Generation EU post-Covid resilience and recovery plan, even though the judicial reforms enforced by PiS have been based on laws duly enacted by the Polish parliament and signed by the country\u2019s president, in accordance with the Polish constitution.<\/p>\n

The same elites sitting in Brussels have failed to react to the Civic Platform\u2019s and former European Council president\u2019s warnings that they intend to ignore the most basic principles of the rule of law and judicial independence once in power.<\/p>\n

Let us hope, for the sake of democracy and civil liberties in Poland, that, if Donald Tusk and his liberal and leftist friends are to govern this country of 38 million inhabitants after the October 15 elections, these are just empty threats.<\/p>\n

But are they?<\/p>\n

On September 9, in the presence of Donald Tusk, who promised to make PiS leaders accountable in case of a victory, and while presenting the Civic Platform\u2019s \u201c100 concrete measures for the first 100 days\u201d, the party\u2019s leaders and MPs\u00a0issued threats of prison sentences for members of the Morawiecki government, PiS figures, and civil servants alike, including PiS leader Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski and incumbent President Andrzej Duda.<\/p>\n

And we also again heard, this time from the lips of PO MP Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, who happens to be a lawyer, that three of the Constitutional Tribunal\u2019s fifteen sitting judges will be dismissed right away by the new liberal-leftist majority. Dark threats of consequences were then also addressed to the police chief as well as to the central bank\u2019s chairman again, the chairman of the media authority, and several ministers.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

See also, on the subject of Poland\u2019s controversial judicial reforms and its tug-of-war with Brussels:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n