People with lit candles protest outside the Court in Płock, Poland on 16 July 2017. Thousands of Poles have taken to the streets of many Polish cities to protest the politicization of the judiciary. PAimages/ Wiktor Dabkowski. All rights reserved.Twenty years ago, the adoption of a new Constitution by Poland’s National Assembly marked a defining moment in the country’s history.
After almost five decades of one-party rule, the Polish people gave expression to their aspiration for freedom and democracy through a set of founding rules protecting citizens from abuses of power and anchoring Poland’s future to human rights and social justice. That future is today at risk, as legislative measures against the independence of the judiciary threaten the very heart of this modern constitutional order.
The adoption by the Parliament of a set of amendments to the Act on the National Council for the Judiciary recently is a case in point. By assuming the authority to select the judges who sit on that Council, the legislature gave itself the decisive role in the appointment of judges, thus undermining judicial independence and, as a consequence, the safeguards of citizens against the arbitrariness of power concentrated in a single branch of government.
