Controversial judicial reforms vetoed by Poland’s president
PRESIDENT Andrzej Duda shocked Poland yesterdaybyannouncing that he would veto controversial legislation that would have stripped away the independence of the Supreme Court and handed control of judicial appointments to the legislature.
His move amounted to bold disobedience of the ruling Law and Justice party, from which he formally separated himself to become president. It was also a major setback for Law and Justice leaders, who have embarked on a rapid effort to bring the nation’s independent institutions under the control of the populist party, which gained power in 2015. The government has already clamped down on public media and restricted the right to democratic assembly.
But the reorganisation of the judiciary was seen as the most brazen move yet, widely condemned as an assault on the separation of powers and the rule of law. Tens of thousands of protesters marched in opposition to the changes, and European Union officials were threatening to sanction the Polish government if it did not back down.
On Friday, the US State Department raised concerns about the legislation. President Donald Trump visited Warsaw on July 6 and extolled its nationalist leaders, without mentioning the judicial overhaul they were moving through parliament.
“Poland needs a reform, but a wise one,” Duda said at a news conference yesterday. “I don’t want this situation to divide our society, because Poland is one. I am aware I will be criticised, probably by both sides of the political scene, but I make my decision with great responsibility for the Polish state.”
Of the measures he vetoed, one would have removed all current justices of the Supreme Court, except those handpicked by the governing party’s justice minister. The other would have given Parliament authority over appointments to the National Council of the Judiciary, currently an independent body that names judges to the nation’s courts. The measure he left in place would give the justice minister more control over regional and local courts.
Overriding the president’s veto requires a supermajority of 60 percent, a threshold the ruling Law and Justice party could reach only with the backing of other parties, a scenario that is unlikely.
Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he was “surprised and disappointed by the president’s decision”.
Opposition leaders, meanwhile, hailed Duda’s independence but said he did not go far enough in turning back Law and Justice’s efforts to paralyse the courts.
“It is a step in the right direction and recognition for the protesters,” said Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a leading member of the Modern party. “Now we need consultation and negotiations, not this hasty legislative process.” She said credit for impeding Law and Justice was due to protesters who have taken to the streets for more than a week now.
Outside the senate building on Friday, as lawmakers debated the legislation before a vote on Saturday morning, Marta Smagowicz, 37, said she was grappling with the prospect of her young children growing up without the freedom she had come to know after 1989, when a democratic revolution in Poland overthrew communism.
“I want freedom of thought and freedom of movement for them,” said Smagowicz, who works in education.
Popular opposition was amplified by warnings from Brussels, where European leaders pushed hard against what they said is a threat to the rule of law in a nation once held up as a post-communist success story. Poland joined the bloc in 2004, part of the expansion that included much of Eastern Europe.
Donald Tusk, president of the European Council and a former Polish prime minister, said the actions “go against European values and standards and risk damaging our reputation. They transport us – in the political sense – in time and space: backwards and eastwards.”
Still, the Law and Justice party had been defiant, pressing ahead under the leadership of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who wields vast power from his perch in Parliament. He put forward Duda as the party’s candidate for president in 2015, and the two are closely aligned. Even opposition leaders expected the president to fall in line.
But Duda said he was not properly consulted about the changes, which he said he will rewrite himself over the next two months. He said the restructuring handed too much power to the justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, whose office had been combined with that of the public prosecutor.
“We don’t have a tradition that the general prosecutor can interfere in the Supreme Court’s work, and I agree, it can’t be allowed,” said Duda. He said his thinking had been informed by talks with Zofia Romaszewska, who was active in Solidarity, the Polish labour union that helped precipitate the fall of communism across Europe. He said she told him, “Mr President, I have lived in a country in which the general prosecutor could do anything, and I would not come back to it.”
Duda also said such a thorough overhaul of the judiciary was not part of Law and Justice’s election platform. Polling suggested that a majority of the country wanted the president to veto the legislation. At the same time, polls show that Law and Justice retains strong support, leading its closest rival, the centre-right Civic Platform, by double digits.
Opponents of the measures saw Duda’s veto as their last hope, as the Constitutional Court, the body with the authority to invalidate the legislation, has already been remade to reflect government interests.