A Bad Workman Blames His Tools
A faint feeling of futility is what you might experience if you look at the EU’s efforts to fight the erosion of the rule of law and what they have achieved so far. The right-wing populist landslide,...
View ArticleBeing a Good Dictator is not so Easy
That an investigative journalist gets into trouble with the police in Vladimir Putin’s Russia of 2019 is not news. That the police plants drugs on people to frame them is not news either. But that the...
View ArticleFighting Fire with Fire
At the first sight, the likely nomination of Věra Jourova as Commissioner for rule of law and dropping Frans Timmermans out of the portfolio appears to be a significant victory for the Visegrad Group....
View ArticleUndemocratic but Formally Lawful: The Suspension of the Polish Parliament
While the attention of many constitutional law scholars has been on the UK Government’s decision to prorogue Parliament and first judicial responses, the Polish Sejm’s plenary sitting has been...
View ArticleCreating a Safe Venue of Judicial Review
On 24 September 2019, Advocate General Tanchev delivered his opinion in joined cases C-558/18 and C-563/18. It is his latest involvement in a series of cases which concern the rule of law in Poland...
View Article10 Anti-Constitutional Commandments
Poland is on the eve of the parliamentary elections to be held on October 13, 2019. This provides a good opportunity to step back for a second to analyse the turbulent years of 2015-2019 and to piece...
View ArticleIs One Offended Pole Enough to Take Critics of Official Historical Narratives...
In a recent interview with Verfassungsblog, Wojciech Sadurski lists his fears accompanying the high probability of the Law and Justice forthcoming electoral victory. He mentions fundamental rules and...
View ArticleThe Polish Senate under Opposition Control
The Law and Justice party, having won an absolute majority of Sejm (lower house) seats in the recent parliamentary elections, will continue to govern Poland for the next four years. This news must...
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Closing Loops, Unclosing Loops
It looks already like old news in these incredibly fast-moving times. But please let’s take a moment and reflect on this: At the general elections in Poland last weekend, nearly one out of two has...
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Stand with Wojciech Sadurski: his freedom of expression is (y)ours
In May of this year, we published an open letter in support of Professor Wojciech Sadurski, against whom the Polish ruling party and its allies brought several legal proceedings to silence his robust...
View ArticleHigh Expectations
On November 18, the CJEU ruled in a much-anticipated case concerning referrals from the Polish Supreme Court regarding the Disciplinary Chamber of Polish Supreme Court and, indirectly, the National...
View ArticleThe Power of ‘Appearances’
Last week the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) replied to Polish Supreme Court’s (SC) preliminary references regarding the independence of judges of its Disciplinary Chamber – a new SC division enjoying...
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Supporting Wojciech Sadurski in a Warsaw Courtroom
Photos: Twitter Last week one of us, together with Gráinne de Burca, again put the spotlight on PiS and allies suing Wojciech Sadurski over some highly critical tweets. It led to a tremendous show of...
View ArticleBuilding on #WithWoj
Recently, a distinguished scholar contributing to Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? concluded his chapter about a European country as follows: “populisms … often carry a seed of self-destruction:...
View ArticleOpen Letter to the President of the European Commission
Open Letter to the President of the European Commission regarding Poland’s disciplinary regime for judges and the urgent need for interim measures in Commission v Poland (C-791/19) Ever since the...
View ArticleBurning the Last Bridge to Europe
The recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Poland, which implemented the criterial CJEU judgment on the compliance of the new Polish National Judiciary Council (neoKRS) with EU standards, came as no...
View ArticleDiscipline and Punish
The Polish rule of law saga took yet another turn for the worse. The Parliament is working on a bill to prevent judicial review of the previous judicial reforms as well as to neutralize the effects of...
View ArticleThe Supranational Rule of Law: Thinking the Future
La Cour, chaque fois quel est saisie dans le cadre de sa compétence, a l’obligation de se prononcer, l’obligation de dire le droit conformément a la mission générale qui lui est assigné par l’article...
View Article1460 Days Later: Rule of Law in Poland R.I.P. (Part I)
On 13 January 2016, exactly four years ago today, the Commission activated its rule of law framework for the very first time with respect to Poland (for our previous 2-part post assessing the...
View Article1460 Days Later: Rule of Law in Poland R.I.P. (Part II)
3. Problems left unaddressed by the Court of Justice’s rulings to date Notwithstanding the seminal and welcome rulings issued this year by the Court of Justice, a number of important and urgent issues...
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