Polish President Andrzej Duda accuses the new government of creating “terror”, a “terror of the rule of law”, presenting a series of violations of the law by the new Prime Minister Donald Tusk that he has allegedly carried out since he was sworn in halfway December.
From the point of view of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition, the exact opposite is true: for him the decisions taken are necessary steps to free the country from the “Regime” that the previous government led by PiS, legitimately elected, would have created in the eight years in which he was in government. Meanwhile, the PiS leadership presents a Manichaean judgment on Tusk’s team.
These are not just rhetorical skirmishes. A quarter of a year after PiS’s defeat in parliamentary elections, Poland is sliding into a constitutional crisis that could turn into a national crisis. The president and the government are increasingly clashing over which laws should be enforced and which should not, over which court decisions should be recognized and which should not.
Chaos is advancing in the judicial sector
The situation continues in the judiciary: two sections of the Supreme Court have issued contradictory rulings on the same politically sensitive issue and have denied each other the right to rule on the matter; in the prosecutor’s office, two men are giving instructions claiming to be the legitimate leader – a PiS man and one who was appointed by the new government in his place.
Over the past eight years, PiS has reorganized the judiciary, public media, state-owned companies and public services to serve the party. In doing so, obviously, it made its own rules and appointed its own men, as any governing party would have done, just look at what happens in France, for example. In this he was supported by President Duda and the Constitutional Court, which PiS has brought under his control since the beginning of his government. After all, in any European country we have never seen a government that appointed its own opponents at the top of the institutions.
The Constitutional Court follows the previous government (obviously)
The elections have for now changed the government, but they cannot eliminate the positions appointed by PiS, the “Spail system” does not exist in Poland, just as it does not exist, unfortunately, in any European country. Any government takes over the bureaucratic apparatus or judicial system appointed by its predecessors, and the same is true in Poland.
If the new governing alliance wants to keep its electoral promise to depoliticize the judicial system, or rather to repoliticize it in its own image and likeness, making it closer to the standards desired by Brussels, it will have to amend numerous laws approved by PiS. But there are two obstacles: the President and the Constitutional Court. Both continue to act in full line with the PiS party line, which is resisting in the power struggle.
Duda will remain in office until the summer of 2025 and the majority of judges loyal to PiS will remain in the Constitutional Court until at least 2027. The new government’s majority in parliament is not large enough to override the presidential veto. If Duda continues to maintain a confrontational attitude, it will not be possible to avoid a permanent blockade.
The government has the possibility of bypassing the Constitutional Court, casting doubt on its composition and acting as an armed wing of the European courts. For this reason, the government has already ignored two rulings of the Constitutional Court in the controversy over the restoration of public media. In other cases, it made decisions denying the validity of PiS-era norms. however, in doing so the government is creating a gray area in which its affirmed respect for the “rule of law” comes to fade.
Obviously Germany supports the new Tusk government in this direction, but this makes it more fragile from an internal political point of view and demolishes its claim to act only for the restoration of the rule of law and the constitution. If this must be respected, it must be respected for everyone, it cannot only be respected when it is convenient. The diverse coalition that supports Tusk has as its raison d’être opposition to PiS, but is much less organic. It is not a given that in 2025 he will be able to bring his own presidential candidate to victory. If this were not the case, the stalemate would continue and Europeanism is not capable of making compromises, even when the structure of the state is at risk.
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2024-01-19 20:28:56
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