Polish constitutional crisis

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The Polish constitutional crisis, also known as the Polish rule-of-law crisis, is a political conflict ongoing since 2015 in which the Polish government has been accused of failing to comply with European and Polish constitutional law. The 2015 elections resulted in the Law and Justice party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) winning control of both the presidency and the parliament. With this government trifecta (as a result of its participation in the United Right), PiS used its power to appoint judges to the Constitutional Tribunal in 2015, leading to the 2015 Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The government of Poland continued to expand its hold on the judiciary resulting in the 2017 Supreme Court crisis, and the 2019 Polish judicial disciplinary panel law. These events allowed the legislature and executive of the Polish government to have de facto control over judges and their appointments.[1]

These moves have been condemned by the European Union which initiated an Article 7 process against Poland. The European Commission referred Poland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), stating in 2017, "the executive and legislative branches have been systematically enabled to politically interfere in the composition, powers, administration and functioning of the judicial branch."[2] In 2019 and 2020, the ECJ ruled against Poland in Commission v Poland, ordering it to suspend several laws which interfere with the independence of the judiciary, but these rulings have been largely ignored in Poland.[3] The crisis briefly jeopardised the EU coronavirus budget which allowed funds to be made available to EU member states on the condition of "rule of law", a clause which both the Polish government and Hungarian government threatened to veto in 2020.[4]

Since the changes to the judiciary, a number of protests took place as a result of either the changes themselves, rulings by the new judiciary, or other legislative action deemed to break European or international human rights legislation. This includes the Black Protest and Women's Strike against restrictions to women's rights (especially with regards to abortion), the Polish Sejm Crisis against restrictions of press freedoms, and the 2020 LGBT protests in Poland against restrictions to LGBT rights,[5] and the 2023 Polish protests in response to the oppression committed by the government by these actions. These rulings and legislative actions with the corresponding protest action have exacerbated the crisis in Poland.

After the 2023 Polish parliamentary election, the installation of the Donald Tusk-led coalition government has started to reverse the PiS reforms. This is opposed by Andrzej Duda, who remains President of Poland.

  1. ^ "Poland". Freedom House. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  2. ^ "Rule of Law: European Commission acts to defend judicial independence in Poland". European Commission. 20 December 2017. Archived from the original on 2024-07-17. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  3. ^ Morijn, John (2020-03-10). "Commission v Poland: What Happened, What it Means, What it Will Take". Verfassungsblog: On Matters Constitutional. doi:10.17176/20200310-215105-0. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  4. ^ "Rule of law fears remain in Poland despite EU compromise". The Guardian. 2020-12-11. Retrieved 2020-12-13.
  5. ^ UKCLA (2020-11-12). "Atina Krajewska: The judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal on abortion: a dark day for Poland, for Europe, and for democracy". UK Constitutional Law Association. Retrieved 2020-11-15.