Btw, that's not at all accurate where Poland's constitutional court is concerned (mind you, the court was created by a communist dictator to guard the regime against the rising tide of the Solidarity movement; couple that with Poland's mediocre constitution today and the previous ruling party's machinations and involvement in manufacturing the crisis). The issue is more complicated than what the media has presented us with. It's also rather banal in itself and is being used by powerful interest groups to keep the post-communist boat steady. In general, I recommend deeper familiarity with the topic before commenting. Many journalists possess superficial comprehension of the topics they report about and basing one's opinions on a few articles is not good practice. (Furthermore, Anne Applebaum, who I claim has been quite influential in influencing American opinion on the subject, has written about this and related topics in the WaPo a number of times in what amounts to a conflict of interest: her husband Radek Sikorski was a high ranking minister in the previous gov't and member of the previous ruling party, the same party embroiled in numerous corruption scandals and stands to lose under this gov't, never mind that they have a long history of demonizing ands scapegoating the current ruling party when it was in the opposition as a way of deflecting from its own failures and as a way of trying to secure its elite status. Mind you, Sikorski was himself a central figure in some of these corruption scandals, one of which involved making illegal backroom deals with the central bank to influence the elections in his party's favor.)