European Court of Justice orders Poland to reinstate judges

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

I think the EU is only upset because the judges are Bolsheviks. If they were far right, the EU would see nothing wrong.

Such Bolsheviks as Gersdorf, who was a member of the Solidarity Movement who helped former political prisoners of the communist regime get back into the workforce. Shudder.

[Luziyca]

Good on the ECJ: I'd probably either have them reinstate judges, or pay them severance.

[Mardla]

I think the EU is only upset because the judges are Bolsheviks. If they were far right, the EU would see nothing wrong.

Such Bolsheviks as Gersdorf, who was a member of the Solidarity Movement who helped former political prisoners of the communist regime get back into the workforce. Shudder.

I don't consider Solidarity to be anticommunist, just anti Russia.

[Page]

Again, fed news by Sorosian media.

Ah yes, Soros. Even though there are hundreds of billionaires who funnel money into the Republican Party, right-wing SUPERPAC groups, and right-wing media, the one billionaire who funnels money to the Democrats and liberals abroad somehow has managed to control all the world.

All the plans of nationalists foiled by one evil guy. Why does he does it? I can't imagine why someone who grew up as a Jew in Nazi occupied Europe would have such a problem with far-right nationalist types.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Such Bolsheviks as Gersdorf, who was a member of the Solidarity Movement who helped former political prisoners of the communist regime get back into the workforce. Shudder.

I don't consider Solidarity to be anticommunist, just anti Russia.

Nice of you to consider that. Poland became a liberal democracy afterwards, so they must have done something wrong then.

http://www.sn.pl/osadzienajwyzszym/Site ... g_Kolegium

Which one of these judges exactly are Bolsheviks, according to you?

[Mardla]

I don't consider Solidarity to be anticommunist, just anti Russia.

Nice of you to consider that. Poland became a liberal democracy afterwards, so they must have done something wrong then.

http://www.sn.pl/osadzienajwyzszym/Site ... g_Kolegium

Which one of these judges exactly are Bolsheviks, according to you?

Dunno their names: "Five or six of them from the Supreme Court were deeply immersed in the system and several were guilty of being strongly supportive of the Communist system."

I would consider any judge appointed in the 80's to be suspect for obvious reasons.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Nice of you to consider that. Poland became a liberal democracy afterwards, so they must have done something wrong then.

http://www.sn.pl/osadzienajwyzszym/Site ... g_Kolegium

Which one of these judges exactly are Bolsheviks, according to you?

Dunno their names: "Five or six of them from the Supreme Court were deeply immersed in the system and several were guilty of being strongly supportive of the Communist system."

I would consider any judge appointed in the 80's to be suspect for obvious reasons.

Where is that quote from, if I might inquire?

Nice that you think that, but I would like their names. There aren't too many judges on the Supreme Court, it should be easy to name the culprits. Or are we fighting the nebulous scourge of Bolshevism without clear purpose or goals?

[Mardla]

Dunno their names: "Five or six of them from the Supreme Court were deeply immersed in the system and several were guilty of being strongly supportive of the Communist system."

I would consider any judge appointed in the 80's to be suspect for obvious reasons.

Where is that quote from, if I might inquire?

Nice that you think that, but I would like their names. There aren't too many judges on the Supreme Court, it should be easy to name the culprits. Or are we fighting the nebulous scourge of Bolshevism without clear purpose or goals?

I don't know their names, I'm not Polish.

Quote is from here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomb ... n-backlash

[Dahon]

Communist judges should have been jailed in 1989, not allowed to continue with their career, let alone into 2015. Especially if they at any point ordered a life sentence or capital punishment on anyone who protested for freedom. They should be the ones who should have been tried in a military court and rubber stamped with capital punishment for treason.

But, regardless, nobody cares what the ECJ says. As an added bonus, Poland is going to ask its own constitutional tribunal to rule on whether European law supersedes the Polish constitution in areas where the constitution and the EU conflict. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... n-campaign

The realistic and morally right answer is no. This is the death of EU law. Italy is also ignoring a ruling, and so is Hungary.

This is just so much "power power power power fuck you power power power power fuck you power power power power fuck you nurny nur nur" I shouldn't bother, save that a court-packing plan is still a fucking court-packing plan, no matter the detail, and such is frowned on, whether it be FDR doing it or Duda doing it.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Where is that quote from, if I might inquire?

Nice that you think that, but I would like their names. There aren't too many judges on the Supreme Court, it should be easy to name the culprits. Or are we fighting the nebulous scourge of Bolshevism without clear purpose or goals?

I don't know their names, I'm not Polish.

Quote is from here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomb ... n-backlash

You don't know their names, but you suppose that there must be some. If you are advocating a purge of Bolshevik judges, it would be good to know who those judges are, methinks.

The quote is from Morawiecki, the current head of government. He wants those changes to the Supreme Court. He also doesn't give any names, and he is Polish.

Further down:

Judge Grzegorz Borkowski, head of office for the NCJ and a member of Iustitia, told me, however, that he only knows of three Supreme Court judges who ruled on resistance cases during the 1980s period of martial law, and only one of them sentenced a dissident. The judges point out that the top echelons of the court system were thoroughly purged after the Communist regime fell and that most of the lower court judges who weren't purged out have since retired: The average Polish judge is 44 years old, too young to have served the Communists.

[Mardla]

I don't know their names, I'm not Polish.

Quote is from here: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomb ... n-backlash

You don't know their names, but you suppose that there must be some. If you are advocating a purge of Bolshevik judges, it would be good to know who those judges are, methinks.

The quote is from Morawiecki, the current head of government. He wants those changes to the Supreme Court. He also doesn't give any names, and he is Polish.

Further down:

Judge Grzegorz Borkowski, head of office for the NCJ and a member of Iustitia, told me, however, that he only knows of three Supreme Court judges who ruled on resistance cases during the 1980s period of martial law, and only one of them sentenced a dissident. The judges point out that the top echelons of the court system were thoroughly purged after the Communist regime fell and that most of the lower court judges who weren't purged out have since retired: The average Polish judge is 44 years old, too young to have served the Communists.

I'm not advocating it, but I certainly think Poland is entitled to, just like Germany would have been entitled to clean out their courts if Nazi appointments infected them. If the issue is a problem, it's a Polish problem. Foreign states telling Poland what to do is less democratic, not more democratic.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

You don't know their names, but you suppose that there must be some. If you are advocating a purge of Bolshevik judges, it would be good to know who those judges are, methinks.

The quote is from Morawiecki, the current head of government. He wants those changes to the Supreme Court. He also doesn't give any names, and he is Polish.

Further down:

I'm not advocating it, but I certainly think Poland is entitled to, just like Germany would have been entitled to clean out their courts if Nazi appointments infected them. If the issue is a problem, it's a Polish problem. Foreign states telling Poland what to do is less democratic, not more democratic.

Poland is not living up to its treaty obligations; that is a foreign problem. Also, making the courts appointed by PiS doesn't seem too democratic. A liberal democracy is only possible with an independent judiciary.

Yeah, but like I said, there are barely any former communist judges anymore, they are all retired. There is nothing to clean out.

[Dahon]

So is effectively leaving the decision of whether or not a judge has bootlicked enough to Duda's satisfaction to, well, Duda and Duda alone -- but then, one is enshrined in Polish law.

[Mardla]

I'm not advocating it, but I certainly think Poland is entitled to, just like Germany would have been entitled to clean out their courts if Nazi appointments infected them. If the issue is a problem, it's a Polish problem. Foreign states telling Poland what to do is less democratic, not more democratic.

Poland is not living up to its treaty obligations; that is a foreign problem. Also, making the courts appointed by PiS doesn't seem too democratic. A liberal democracy is only possible with an independent judiciary.

Yeah, but like I said, there are barely any former communist judges anymore, they are all retired. There is nothing to clean out.

Courts are always appointed by a group external to the court.


Independent judiciary is specifically undemocratic, not that this is bad.

[Mardla]

So is effectively leaving the decision of whether or not a judge has bootlicked enough to Duda's satisfaction to, well, Duda and Duda alone -- but then, one is enshrined in Polish law.

Duda is effectively the supreme judge

[Senegalboy]

You don't know their names, but you suppose that there must be some. If you are advocating a purge of Bolshevik judges, it would be good to know who those judges are, methinks.

The quote is from Morawiecki, the current head of government. He wants those changes to the Supreme Court. He also doesn't give any names, and he is Polish.

Further down:

I'm not advocating it, but I certainly think Poland is entitled to, just like Germany would have been entitled to clean out their courts if Nazi appointments infected them. If the issue is a problem, it's a Polish problem. Foreign states telling Poland what to do is less democratic, not more democratic.

It's not just a polish issue.Poland is a member of the EU and the EU has standards for democracy and if Poland has slipped in terms of democracy and not meeting standards then it is an EU problem.

[Mardla]

I'm not advocating it, but I certainly think Poland is entitled to, just like Germany would have been entitled to clean out their courts if Nazi appointments infected them. If the issue is a problem, it's a Polish problem. Foreign states telling Poland what to do is less democratic, not more democratic.

It's not just a polish issue.Poland is a member of the EU and the EU has standards for democracy and if Poland has slipped in terms of democracy and not meeting standards then it is an EU problem.

Democracy is other countries telling you what to do? Lmao

[The Tomerlands]

https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2018-10/cp180159en.pdf

In short: the European Court of Justice, in proceedings between Poland and the European Commission, has implemented interim measures for Poland to comply with. Poland introduced a law which lowered the age maximum of the Supreme Court from 70 to 65, and would implement that law with immediate effect. Judges who wanted to stay on past the retirement limit of 65 would have to apply for an extension of their term with the President of Poland, who would then decide based on his own criteria. In effect, this means that compliant judges can be kept on for 5 years longer than their dissident counterparts, making the Supreme Court effectively controlled by the president of the Republic.

I a move that made her my immediate hero, the president of the Supreme Court Małgorzata Gersdorf refused to step down, and her deputy, appointed by Duda to replace Gersdorf, refused to take her place. She claimed that removing her was unlawful, as the Constitution of Poland gives her a term she has not yet completed. Since then, the Supreme Court has been at odds with the government. The European Commission (the day-to-day governing body of the EU) decided to implement a judicial procedure for non-compliance against Poland, since the EU has certain liberal-democratic requirements for its member states. As an interim measure, the European Court of Justice has suspended the new age limit, at least until they give a final ruling on the substance of the case.

In my view, this is good news. Poland is slowly becoming more and more authoritarian, and filling the Supreme Court with Duda's friends would not have made that any better. I am curious to see what the ECJ will decide in the end, because this is the first time that the ECJ decides on the requirements of a liberal democracy.

What do you think, oh NSG, keeper of the Swans?

This is a good thing. Poland shouldn't be allowed to fall into dictatorship just because of some whiny right wingers and government goons cry about the EU being mean to them.

[Senegalboy]

It's not just a polish issue.Poland is a member of the EU and the EU has standards for democracy and if Poland has slipped in terms of democracy and not meeting standards then it is an EU problem.

Democracy is other countries telling you what to do? Lmao

No but the EU has a right to be concerned as every EU nation should have an acceptable level of democracy and if poland doesn't comply they should simply leave.

[Mardla]

Democracy is other countries telling you what to do? Lmao

No but the EU has a right to be concerned as every EU nation should have an acceptable level of democracy and if poland doesn't comply they should simply leave.

Does not having an acceptable level mean a country not following its own people, or rather not following the EU?

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

No but the EU has a right to be concerned as every EU nation should have an acceptable level of democracy and if poland doesn't comply they should simply leave.

Does not having an acceptable level mean a country not following its own people, or rather not following the EU?

Have you seen the protests in Poland? These reforms are not half as popular as you think.

[Senegalboy]

No but the EU has a right to be concerned as every EU nation should have an acceptable level of democracy and if poland doesn't comply they should simply leave.

Does not having an acceptable level mean a country not following its own people, or rather not following the EU?

Poland can refuse to reinstate them but if it contradicts the laws of the EU then they can leave.

[Mardla]

Does not having an acceptable level mean a country not following its own people, or rather not following the EU?

Have you seen the protests in Poland? These reforms are not half as popular as you think.

I don't necessarily think they are or not, I just think the EU's opinion of them is quite distinct from that.

[Trumptonium1]

Does not having an acceptable level mean a country not following its own people, or rather not following the EU?

Have you seen the protests in Poland? These reforms are not half as popular as you think.

Have you see the polls?

PiS went from being the first party in history to win a majority in Parliament to add another 10 percent to their vote - they are now around 45% of the vote. The reforms are popular. No amount of pussy hats on the streets will suppress citizens expressing their democratic will.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Have you seen the protests in Poland? These reforms are not half as popular as you think.

Have you see the polls?

PiS went from being the first party in history to win a majority in Parliament to add another 10 percent to their vote - they are now around 45% of the vote. The reforms are popular. No amount of pussy hats on the streets will suppress citizens expressing their democratic will.

I have seen the polls. Somewhere between 32 and 40 percent. That is a minority, as you might see. Following the will of the minority is not democracy per se. And people expressing their dissatisfaction with protests is also expressing a democratic will.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_p ... y_election

These reforms are popular with some people, and unpopular with some. Just because the biggest party does it doesn't mean that it is widely supported.