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Poles protest passage of court revamp

Plan boosts government control over courts; bill could trigger EU sanctions

By Marek Strzelecki and Dorota Bartyzel, Bloomberg News
Published: July 20, 2017, 5:52pm

WARSAW, Poland — Tens of thousands of Poles poured into the streets of the eastern European nation’s biggest cities after the passage of a controversial revamp of the judiciary that’s been criticized by the European Union for backsliding on democracy.

Over 50,000 people gathered in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, a city spokesman said, while parallel protests were held in about 100 cities including Gdansk and Krakow, according to organizers. They urged President Andrzej Duda to veto legislation passed Thursday in the lower house that would bolster government sway over the courts. Grzegorz Schetyna, head of the opposition Civic Platform, said the bill risks triggering unrest akin to the protests that ousted Ukraine’s leader in 2014.

The battle over the court reform is becoming one of the biggest political standoffs in Poland since communism fell in 1989. The EU has already raised the threat of sanctions over the plans. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the Law & Justice party, says he won’t back down, though the government backtracked on a 2016 bill to ban abortion when 100,000 protesters, mainly women, flooded the streets.

“Constitutional matters are being pushed through under the cover of night without debate — the crisis is set to escalate,” Civic Platform lawmaker and former Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said by phone. “We won’t be giving an inch without a fight.”

Law & Justice has been rushing to push through the legislation, which would force into immediate retirement all Supreme Court judges, with little or no debate and without consulting the judiciary. Ruling party lawmakers and cabinet members gave a standing ovation after the passage of the bill on Thursday. The upper house, in which Law & Justice has the majority, may review the legislation as early as Friday.

Since regaining power in October 2015, Law & Justice has challenged democratic principles of the EU treaty and sparked warnings about a drift toward authoritarian rule that communism’s collapse was deemed to have ended. The court revamp triggered demonstrations across Poland last weekend, bringing tens of thousands to the streets.

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