Protests continue against laws governing judiciary

Poles protested in cities and towns across Poland for the eighth day Sunday over new rules passed by the ruling party that would drastically limit the independence of the judiciary.

Protesters see moves by the populist governing Law and Justice party as an assault on the country’s democratic system of checks and balances, accusing party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski of behaving in an authoritarian way to cement his power.

People waved flags of the European Union and Poland as they gathered in the evening in front of the presidential palace and the Supreme Court in Warsaw. They called on President Andrzej Duda to veto three contentious bills that would put the Supreme Court and other areas of the judiciary under the party’s control.