> On Thursday, Amnesty International independently verified Citizen Lab's finding that Sen. Krzysztof Brejza was hacked multiple times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s parliamentary election campaign.
How is it not a Watergate? They used Pegasus on the leader of the most important election campaign in the last 7 years in Poland.
How is proving that politicians and their families are stealing millions from the country's budget / EU funds, while denying access to anyone affiliated with the opposition, not "a Watergate"?
That's just a normal day for us in Poland. People who vote for Law and Justice do not care the law (which has been already changed to serve their interests) nor the justice (which is also nearly fully controlled by them at this point). As long as it pisses off the other side, it's OK with them. Oh, and the Catholic Church is helping them, because they also get a cut.
My perception from outside is that large swaths of Polish Catholics refuse to recognize this Pope's legitimacy, because they disagree with his politics.
I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the institution to give a proper response. To me, many of their (Polish Episcopate's) actions are illogical and a net loss to the community they're supposed to foster.
I don't think that the Vatican necessarily has that much power over the Polish Episcopate. It seems like they operate as an association of non-profits all across the world and every single organization operates independently, within a rough framework.
I live in one of the largest cities, haven't ever really been a church-goer. Going through all the sacraments was just a traditional thing you'd do. A decade ago, I don't remember hearing anything political in my local church. Sure, I heard some pretty obnoxious homophobic stuff, saw "exorcisms", but it was always somewhat neutral. However over the past few years, I've heard a lot of stories about rabid priests demonizing "the other side" (be it the other parties, "the LGBT plague" etc.), saying that the only way towards salvation is voting for PiS. Maybe it was a very vocal minority that was amplified by the media (look, priest X is doing this stuff! how terrible!). Eventually it seemed like that behaviour was normalized and the attitude of the people towards the Church became even more radicalized.
Right now, the percentage of people who claim they're religious is plummeting. People who disagree with PiS (and the behaviour of the Church) are pulling their kids from "Religion" / Catechesis lessons, mostly in large cities. In my community, the schools have to group up multiple classes to even have groups of 10. How do you fight it? Well, you give a ton of funding to "patriotic causes", which are primarily promoting Catholicism, militarism / far-right, nationalistic narratives (the government is contributing to this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB2XRK_Xb6g).
The trade-off seems to be replacing your average church-goes / people who only go to the church for baptisms / First Communion / marriages, with Polish "patriots" - nationalists full of hatred towards anyone who's not white, religious and preferably voting for the Populist-Nationalists or Conservative-Liberals (who banded up with actual neonazis???). Arguably, I think that financially it could be a net positive for the Episcopate - they're getting public funding (for now) and possibly acquiring new, radicalized, loyal followers.
Disclaimer: It probably _is_ a very loud minority. Unfortunately it's also the minority that appears to control the Church leadership. I feel sorry for the legitimately honest and good people I met through the Church, who are now getting grouped up with xenophobes.
Oof sounds like such a weird thing to happen in Poland of all places... I mean you guys saw first hand what xenophobia and fascism do in WW2. Poland should be the bastion of western liberalism, not whatever it is becoming now...
And then they had to endure another few decades of occupation, putting them behind the rest of western Europe and creating a feeling of abandonment by the rest of Europe. It's common to forget that for some countries WW2 lasted in the form of occupation all the way up to 1989.
Maybe decades of occupation made them realize they value their own culture and identity more than some woke Twitter user's western "liberalism". Maybe close experience with totalitarianism makes them skeptical of current western "liberalism".
So... they want to go back to totalitarianism? That doesn't make a lot of sense. I get wanting to keep your culture and identity... but not at this price for people who were paying that price 3 decades ago.
It's just the crap that's peddled by the government to get the votes. Scare them! First year your enemy is the current government, third year it's the gays, sixth year it's the muslims (who don't want to stay in the country at all), you sprinkle in some antisemitism (the evil jewish claims!!11) and suddenly you radicalize a fifth of the population. Oops!
Right now is probably the toughest moment for them. We have a really nice Omicron wave and their tax reform that went into effect on Jan 1st (primarily shifting money from local government, where opposition controls the largest cities, to healthcare) has failed extremely spectacularly. They ignored the whole process and the laws are overcomplicated (yet broken) crap, increasing the tax burden on most people. Oops!
There was irrefutable proof that Nixon ordered the break into DNC headquarters and then covered it up. We have proof Brejza was hacked. To become Watergate, we need proof the government ordered it.
There isn't really proof Nixon ordered the break in, though that's because he created and funded a group to do such things without his knowledge. They still had strong ties to Nixon and he did attempt to cover-up the break in.
He wasn't innocent, I thought my comment made that clear by saying they were paid by him and saying he definitely participated in the failed cover-up that led to his impeachment. He just didn't order the break in. Historical accuracy, not a deflection of guilt.
Don't worry, further evidence will appear, but nobody's getting impeached or resigning, because this is Poland in 2022, only 32 years out if communism, not the USA in 1974, a 200 year old well consolidated democracy.
Virtually no officials were dismissed during the rule of PiS after a scandal. Their electorate does not have an issue with that. They are Poland's Trump, but much worse.
They voted for PiS time and time again. Any party with the words "justice" and "law" in it are probably fascists that would cling to power by any means necessary. Look at Turkey's AKP.
Didn't Trump complain his campaign was spied on too. Deep state will do what it will in every country. Politician change, but lifelong bureaucrats remain. Sometimes its not clear who really runs the show even. You can't assumed based on who is the figurehead on TV.
Trump is not exactly trustworthy narrator about anything. If independent Canadian researcher discovered Trump was spied on I suspect it would be a different story.
The article above is about the Polish ruling party. "They" logically means exactly them (the Polish Ruling party and/or the Polish state which, I guess, is mostly controlled by the said party).
Well, our beloved Hungarian government never made this mistake. I don't mean buying and using Pegasus against opposition politicians and journalists, which they obviously did, but admitting that they have it. (Except for one well known idiot who is a prominent founding member of the governing party, Fidesz, and regularly gets confused and spills the beans when journalists question him. Not that any Fidesz member or government official would talk to the press except for exceptional occasions.)
I was being ironic: they never made the mistake to intentionally admit it. But yes, they ended up admitting unintentionally which they redacted pretty quickly and tried to explain away. This includes the guy who ended up admitting it in the first place. (Named Lajos Kosa, JFTR.)
The funny thing is that up until Kaczyński openly admitted to the authorities using Pegasus, the authorities would respond to the accusations with derisive comments about a game console.
Why a game console, of all things? Well, back in the early 1990s here in Poland, a local Nintendo NES/Famicom clone called Pegasus [1] was a thing among the kids. A hit, indeed.
Here’s [2] the deputy Minister of Justice dismissing the accusations in this regard, a few days ago.
Except the photo posted by him doesn’t even depict Pegasus the console. It’s another Famicom clone, whose chassis is a rip-off of the design of the PS One (2000).
>"The interview follows exclusive reports by The Associated Press that Citizen Lab, a cyber watchdog group at the University of Toronto, found that three Polish government critics were hacked with NSO’s Pegasus.
On Thursday, Amnesty International independently verified Citizen Lab's finding that Sen. Krzysztof Brejza was hacked multiple times in 2019 when he was running the opposition’s parliamentary election campaign.
Text messages stolen from Brejza’s phone were doctored and aired by state-controlled TV in Poland as part of a smear campaign in the heat of the race, which the populist ruling party went on to narrowly win."
PiS controls, via their puppets: the parliamentary majority, the president, all ministries, the attorney general, the courts, the supreme court, public TV and radio, all important companies in important sectors (oil, gas), most of regional radios and press, schools etc.
They ignore the law on daily basis without blinking an eye, spend money like there's no tomorrow (often throwing tens of millions into mud), pass hastily written laws after midnight, and are extremely arrogant with everything they do. They don't talk with free press anymore, or if they do, they repeat scheduled sentences sent in the morning by sms from the leadership. They don't answer the questions; they talk monologue. There was no such arrogance in power in Poland ever, even under communist rule.
The only things they don't control are: senate (48-52), and presidents of big cities + regions; but they steadily amend the laws and funding to make the regions weaker and centralize the power further.
They have almost absolute power at this point, and the only way someone will get prosecuted until they stay in power is someone who tries to threaten their status quo; however since their parliamentary majority is minimal, they're hiding under the carpet everything they can to avoid losing the 51%.
Attorney general Ziobro (which is even more right-wing radical than core PiS) have extensive powers over prosecution. Any prosecutor who would take up this case will likely be delegated to work on other side of country, and case taken over by Ziobro puppets.
It is worth mentioning, that the Attorney General is the only person able to keep the Minister of Justice in check, and vice versa. It just so happens that this time they are the same person.
There is Article 7, which can result in the suspension of the voting rights of the member state, but it's pretty slow. They have also been working on new mechanisms exactly because of rule of law violations by some member states (including Poland and Hungary). Poland is actually being sanctioned, AFAIK, for 1M EUR/day as of now for some violation. I think it's related to their restrictive abortion laws (and they are ignoring the ruling of the European Court, or something like that).
This is besides withholding the funds, which have been mentioned by others and which is happening to Hungary as of now. They are withholding 7.2 billion EURs of the reconstruction fund due to claims of high corruption and an inadequate legal structure and thus control over how it's being spent. (I.e. they can't see the guarantees that a sizeable chunk of it won't be stolen and/or spent on things other than what it's intended for.) And it is, indeed a direct consequence (one of the direct consequences) of the lack of adequate rule of law. No wonder: the very reason these guys dismantle democracy is to seize more power, keep the power and to steal us much as they can. (Which is, besides the obvious personal motivations, is a requisite for operating their power structure.)
Not abortion laws, we’re being fined for the unlawful constitutionally judiciary reforms which were done in 2015 when they took power. PiS (Law and Justice) leader has been obsessed with this idea for decades. By basically jamming the constitutional tribunal Jaroslaw Kaczyński has grabbed the entire judiciary system by the balls, which in many complex ways cements PiS power into place. My understanding has been that also the EU has considered withdrawing EU funding to apply pressure, but they can’t really because they’re worried that PiS would then hypnotize Poles into asking for PolExit. You couldn’t make this shit up. The abortion is a whole other subject here you don’t even wanna know ¯\_(ಠ_ಠ)_/¯
>Poland is actually being sanctioned, AFAIK, for 1M EUR/day as of now for some violation.
That's 0.5M/day related to dispute with Czechs over environmental impact of Turów mine. It seems PiS strategy for negotiating with Czechs is just completely ignoring them, which lead ECJ to impose fines.
Then there are multiple parallel sanctions. There is a 1M/day one as well and it's related to the rule of law. I was wrong, it's not about the abortion act but about the independence of courts [1] [2]. (As far as I can understand they created a system where judges can be disciplined and that is deemed to allow political control over them and their decisions.)
There are many legal recourses because their are rules about being part of the EU.
They can also threaten to drop susidizies and to kick them out.
I'm actually hugely wary of EU interfering in state affairs, because the EU is not some 'magical good guy' - they're just usually 'somewhat gooder'.
In particular, Poland refuted the ECJ as having ultimate authority over local courts, the EU threw a huge fuss - but Poland has substantial backing for that: there is nothing in the treaties which indicate ECJ has said authority. At the very same time, the issue is not resolved even in Germany, and the German high courts are thinking of pressing a case. Since Germany is the 'centre of the EU' - and - there are gaping holes in the true legal authority of the ECJ for certain things, it's not a war that the EU wants to get into. It could tear a mile wide hole in the legal fabric of the EU. That said: I wish the would do it because the situation is unconscionable and almost nobody is aware of it.
Using Pegasus to spy on political opponents however, is a bridge way, way too far. Poland is not going to have a leg to stand on either moral, populist, legal, treaty etc. - there's just no argument they can make.
I think the EU should put a lot of heft behind this issue though.
Finally, bit of a caveat, it could be that other EU states are using the same or similar tech to do 'similar kinds of things' - those EU states are not going to want to be embarrassed by public knowledge or airing of that. So that could be a problem.
As a Brit and in the interest of accuracy, Britain declared war on Germany both in 1914 [0] and 1939 [1] after an ultimatum to Germany expired. So technically 'we' did "start" the WORLD WARs (if we hadn't declared war it is debatable war would have spread to the rest of the world (at least immediately)).
[0] 23:00 August 4th 1914, in response to the invasion of Belgium by Germany.
[1] 11:00 September 3rd 1939, in response to the invasion of Poland by Germany.
Why draw the line of causation there? That seems a bit ridiculous. France had issued the same ultimatum, and declared war just a few hours later.
Both France and Britian were obligated by treaty to defend Poland. Germany started the conflict, and knew full well that they would force other countries to get involved. To claim otherwise is counter-factual.
If you punch a police officer in his face, and his partner knocks you out, you can't claim the partner started the fight.
I would consider it as such already. Federations are ultimately responsible for the failures and flaws of their constituent states if they have the power to prevent them. Nobody considers the US federal government entirely free of blame when a US state passes an illiberal or undemocratic law (e.g. Jim Crow laws), and neither should EU be absolved of responsibility in properly enforcing EU laws in places like Poland and Hungary.
It IS a federation, and regardless of what you call it, the fact is that the EU has the ability to control and limit its rogue members to protect human rights, and chooses not to exercise this power in many cases. The EU is to blame for this and can be considered illiberal in this regard because it does not adequately prevent its constituent states from passing laws that infringe on citizens' fundamental rights.
It is exercising that power to the extent it can. Taking them to court and applying economic penalties would be how actual federated states deal with rogue provinces, at least, at first. The EU doesn't have a federal police force, or even a military with a mandate to reimpose the rule of (European) law in Poland. So it's silly to suggest it has the powers of a federal state, and hence the culpability of one, so should somehow be considered illiberal.
At the point, where the EU is more dependent on Poland being in the EU, than Poland is on being in the EU. That seems a little far fetched at the moment.
I'm still confused where they're asking for a pan-Europe government to step in and force a country to cede some of its sovereignty to it (the EU) and calling that liberal.
That strikes me as slightly different than, say, a coalition breaking up a human rights-violating empire and RETURNING democratic sovereignty to its people.
PiS maintains power through a process similar to gerrymandering. Their base is at around 30% and they acquired power by strategically crafting a message specifically aimed at appealing to the most vulnerable and uneducated segment of the population. Their core promise is a vision of family- and country-first and glory for the heroes of a vague past. In practice PiS rules by causing controversy after controversy which effectively splits the opposition and media, and mostly covers up for the dumbest corruption schemes ever. Most Poles have a distaste for Western European neoliberal politics and are center-right conservative if not libertarian with some liberal, but at this point everybody knows PiS is just filled with cynical and opportunistic apparatchiks. The worst part is that the people who control PiS are simply wicked clever. They’ve spent the last six years continuously running a never-ending political campaign with their media at full blast, and a stand-in president who is constantly traveling and visiting key-towns to meet-greet the communities. Right when they took power in 2015 they reformed the Supreme Court by firing a bunch of judges and installing loyalists effectively breaking the constitution. It’s like a dictatorship of stupid. And what must be said: it’s not that Poland is turning into an actual fascist dictatorship, not that much violence is happening and our political views aren’t being really repressed. The real problem is that PiS is actually strategically weakening us as a country and nation. Especially in our international relationships. This Pegasus spyware is only yet another such example of the BS. In my own personal opinion, at this point PiS has been doing everything so poorly that I suspect that they’re actually being supported and controlled by external adversaries behind the scenes.
> PiS maintains power through a process similar to gerrymandering. Their base is at around 30% and they acquired power by strategically crafting a message specifically aimed at appealing to the most vulnerable and uneducated segment of the population
I don't disagree with rest of your comment. But that's nothing like gerrymandering. It's pure politics.
Gerrymandering is choosing your voters, by meddling with an importance of each single vote.
Politics is knowing your base and crafting message at them. No sane political party in the world tries to craft their policies to make everyone happy. Knowing your voters and telling them what they want to hear is politics 101.
Gerrymandering involves playing and redrawing the map to fit your electorate. PiS was accused of doing this in 2018 when attempts were made to do a large scale restructuring of the entire Warsaw region and the peripheries (where the PiS voters are in larger numbers) but the investigation wasn’t followed through. What’s more PiS has pushed through voting to happen mostly on Sundays when priests can literally tell people at scale to vote and who to vote for. It isn’t much of a secret that rural communities and towns apply pressures on citizens to vote for the correct choice. This is part of the Pegasus argument - that PiS uses many dirty tricks which take them beyond standard politics 101
Carving Warsaw out of Mazowieckie would be very beneficial to Warsaw itself because it wouldn't depend on PiS wojewoda anymore, too bad this idea has died out. And voting in Poland has always happened on Sundays.
There's also thing of organizing contests to increase turnout (that districts with highest turnout will get extra fire truck) in rural areas, in order to improve their results, as they have higher support in rural areas than cities.
Periodically wipe and restore your phone from scratch or a known clean image, periodically change your number. Donate to Citizen Lab, EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Amnesty encouraging their investigative and advisory work. Write to your representative asking for stronger regulation of the industry and sanctions against the rogue companies and their staff.
I don't have any extensive knowledge of the situation, but it seems to me, in the modern world, the only governments NOT using software to spy on political opponents are governments that aren't competent enough. The only ones that you hear about are the ones that are competent enough to do it, but not quite competent enough to hide it.
Having been raised in the 80 and 90s when we still considered Watergate to be a scandal, I find this kind of spying to be an undemocratic abuse of power. But it's the reality we live in now. Most wars these days are wars of knowledge and spying on opponents is, unfortunately, no longer a scandal, but the reality of modern power struggles.
Pardon the snark, but this appears to be a case for Marian Banaś[0] a.k.a. Banaśman - exactly the kind of hero we deserve.
[0] Chief of the Supreme Audit Office who was originally appointed by the ruling party to be loyal, but not exactly competent. Once the internal conflicts in the party spilled over to his family he found his redemption arc - and what an arc it is!
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Don't forget that public television funded from taxes and mandatory fees is under full control of the goverment and didn't publish a single piece of information that critiques government for years now.
But that happens everywhere in the world where there’s public television. In Spain that even happens with private television since they’ve been giving them money as some sort of “pandemic relief”, making sure they never speak ill of the measures put in place. Public television shouldn’t exist in this day and age.
If the state has such a stranglehold on the public channels then that is the underlying problem. It would have the same control over private media if it needed to.
Public media and/or limited state support for private news media is absolutely vital for a functioning democracy.
Are you sure you are not erecting two strawmen there?
In a democracy, the public chooses their leaders. They do so based on the readily available information.
If the only (or overwhelminly prevalent) sources of information have other agendas, such as serving the needs of their conglomerate owners or a totalitarian-aspiring government then that information will be of low quality and likely to further cement the power of those that control the media.
To counteract this, a way must be devised to ensure diligent journalistic types (of whom there is no shortage) have the means and security to do their proper diligence for the public.
Public television lacks the same corporatist incentives of private media, their inability to meaningfully criticize the party that feeds them notwithstanding. I’d prefer a mix of public and private media to private media alone.
Probably he or she conflates progressivism with inefficient, yet authorian marxist rule like in sowjet russia - and corporatism with efficient no-marxist but corporate authorian rule.
Leaked emails indicate that government official ordered TV to create a smear campaign about one judge that just ruled aginst prime minister in a court case. And TV immediately complied.
theres 1 + 17 + even municipal television channels.. all at the expense of taxpayers, to make the government look good or push some politically loaded content
Reading the wiki below in a comment below specifically about the court I see parallels in the US - which is scary.
Though lawful, Republicans ignored their own 'rules' and just refused to 'seat' nominee (by not holding a hearing despite having almost half a year of time left). To be fair can argue wouldnt be confirmed even if they held a vote, but then why didn't they allow that? They then flipped those rules again when it suited their agenda.
It's not totally the same, but reads similar to me.
IDK if it's more scary that I personally believe Dems should exercise the same power to balance it back out. Though that would probably just cause a loop of reciprocating action towards chaos unless Dems can fix issues like the electoral college, redistricting, or add new states to balance the power towards more representational Democracy. Not many other remedies I can think of though.
The court in the US has huge power and they are doing similar things as in Poland such as rolling back abortion rights, LGBTQ rights (I argue this in the recent private school funding ruling and I wouldn't be surprised if they use more 'religious discrimination' to legally allow discrimination against the groups these religions despise).
This goes to your point about power of religion.
I would also add power of media to spread flat out lies (worse, that they are smart enough to realize what they are doing) to further their agenda. While not government funded, the Republican admin and Republican elected basically dictate and actually organize the coverage. Crazy to me.
Please don't hijack a discussion on foreign politics to drop your hot take about US politics.
Baseless fear mongering is not new but it does feel more common. The supreme court is not dramatically out of wack nor have they "rolled back abortion rights". They specifically rejected a particular emergency appeal because of issues with immediate harm.
Preventing state discrimination in charter school funds is not a rollback of lgtbq rights, which are stronger than they have ever been, nor are charter schools mandatory.
Media is not republican controlled and the vast, vast majority of media coverage in the US is liberal in leaning.
Well you're right that the MS ruling is not totally final yet, they have currently banned abortion for ~ 14 million women, at least for the time being. And the MS ruling will likely - at a minimum - allow states to severely restrict or fully outlaw abortion in all but deadly cases.
>>Though lawful, Republicans ... refused to 'seat' nominee...
[Party B] followed the rules. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to appoint a judge, and so no judge was appointed. [Party B] is under no obligation to assist [Party A].
>> They (Party B) then flipped those rules
[Party B] changed no rules. [Party B] had the votes to appoint a judge, and so a judge was appointed. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to oppose it.
Republicans changed an actual written down rule - the 'nuclear option.' Republicans did not have the 60 votes needed. So they changed the rules.
Beyond that factually, like a lot of things in the US govt, rules can be institutional momentum and tradition instead of actual laws. For sure that's debatable use of the word rules but I think in practice for the last century a lot of these unwritten machinations of government moved along without politics getting in the way.
The Thurmond rule is an example of this specifically on SCOTUS confirmations.
Logically or legally right or wrong, Republicans didn't even allow an up or down vote. I think there was a small chance 5 Rs could have voted for Gorsuch maybe not. Obviously not 14 to break cloture.
Trump is the king of destroying the un-written guardrails which have protected the country.
I was watching the TVN vote when visiting my grandparents in poland, man was it scary. Really felt dystopian watching the news during it, but it was great how many protests supported TVN. I'm annoyed that I didn't find out about the one going on near me.
For those not aware, vote on „Lex TVN” was lost by the ruling party, but then parliament’s marshall (person responsive for maintaining order of proceedings) announced that voting process was invalid and ran another voting over the law which made it pass the parliament and go to senate.
And the rest of the countries are?Give me a break.If you're from Poland I find it funny if you're that surprised.But judging from the fact that you're probably not, and you post cnn/irishtimes sources for news about EE, you probably don't understand how things work around here.You're right about some things but being partially right or not seeing the entire picture doesn't mean much of anything.
Yes there's less distinction between the church and the state, that goes in almost every ex-eastern bloc country.Happens here in other countries aswell.Every country has it's shit hidden somewhere, in EE it just stinks more because we don't have money to spray some perfume. The Media is owned by politicians entirely and guess what: that still doesn't do much.You have western[to be read: foreign-imported] rhetoric everywhere, and that makes people still support these 'evil' politicians.So in retrospective you're kind of wrong, because democracy is exactly the thing that put in power the people you don't like.It's a Streisand effect mainly in response to foreign influence that keeps these corrupt politicians in power, because more often than not the alternative is a puppet who knows even less.[By the way is not an excuse for them being corrupt & scummy, i'm just giving a quick rundown to establish these things are not artificial]
Also if you want a free advice: you don't "beat" PiS or any other party that's well-established by crying out corruption, because that's just a lost cause.[You can look at the figure representing european justice right now -- who's from EE -- who correctly stated that there's no difference between EE/WE corruption]; You beat it by recognizing the policies you advocate them don't resonate with the people, and make compromises where necessary.
Very sympathetic to that and it's all disconcerting, but
1) the 'Supreme / Constitutional Court' issue is not nearly as 'one sided'. There were terrible shenanigans played by 'the other side' prior to their departure, which originated that crisis. While I have little faith in PiS, they had legitimate concerns as least to provide cover for some of their own actions.
and item 4) "It defies EU who says member countries must have EU law supremacy" - sorry to burst your bubble but that is reality. There is no treaty or law that gives ECJ 'Supremacy'. The ECJ in 1964 [1] made a ruling on their own jurisdiction and 'declared supremacy'. There is no legislative or treaty basis for quite the authority they assigned to themselves. Some local courts in the EU (i.e. France) have started to defer to the ruling, therefore legitimizing it, but it's still a 'Giant Problem' in the legal foundation of the EU. It was a big 'non populist' issue for Brexit, not really talked about in the media because regular citizens don't care but it was definitely an issue among the elites, and, it's still a contentious issue in Germany (and other places), where the Supremacy of ECJ is still not effectively recognized and it's a 'grey area'.
But yes, it's a serious problem overall, we can agree.
1) However shinenigans you mention were executed in accordance with the law but PiS government violated the law staffing consitutional court, then retroactively changed the law to make what they did barely legal.
"However shinenigans you mention were executed in accordance with the law "
That's disputed, which is the point.
But it's clear they were politically motivated actions to stack the Supreme Court with an ultramajority of Judges of their own liking. Just as PiS did after the fact.
Opening that rabbit hole requires some nuance and objectivity, it's not nearly as one sided as it's presented in some media.
Using words like 'disputed' and talking about previous govenrment shinenigans being responsible in any way for the current state of affairs is true 'false equivalence'.
The previous government is definitely responsible for initiating illegal maneuvers leading to a constitutional crisis related to Judicial appointments.
That doesn't say anything about what the current government has done, or is doing, but contrary to your statement, it's irresponsible not to look at the Judicial crisis outside the context in which it was created, especially in the popular press.
>There were terrible shenanigans played by 'the other side' prior to their departure, which originated that crisis.
How that's related to legality of their own actions? Obvious solution was to reselect 2 judges who were selected illegally by previous parliament, but they willfully reselected all 5 including these chosen correctly previously. This itself was decided by court (K 34/15), but they just ignored that ruling.
Both-Sides-Ism is such a tiresome stance. Yes, PO fucked up on their way out but that in no way justifies PiS actions, not does it even explain them. They'd dismantle democracy with or without PO's unlawful judgment. It's dishonest to claim otherwise.
> There is no treaty or law that gives ECJ 'Supremacy'
Our former head of the Constitutional Court says otherwise, that through ratification of the EU Treaty of Lisbon we have accepted that ECJ decisions and EU law have primacy over national law.
French themselves have never accepted it and have rulings about their law being superior since 90's. They should change their constitution but they won't.
If a bunch of nations are going to get into a kind of Federal Union, and have a 'court' of some kind, wouldn't it be extremely prudent to parameterize what exactly those authorities are?
If you were the PM/Pres or Supreme Court Judge of any country, wouldn't you think it would be the most obvious and important thing to make it very clear and spelled out in law and treaty?
If the framers of the EU actually wanted to hand over 'Judicial Supremacy' to the ECJ, would they, you know actually write that down?
And absence of it being clear, why on god's green earth would nations hand over a fundamental right, one of the pillars of Liberal Democracy, over to a different institution.
Any and all 'decisions' made otherwise, are hugely indirect and speculative i.e. "Well, we signed treaties with the EU after the ECJ declared Supremacy, therefore, they have Supremacy' is still very indirect.
It's one of the more mind-boggling aspects of EU governance, and if you start to take a slightly cynical look at it, it doesn't look good.
The most pragmatic reason for why the ECJ was never explicitly given power was because: it would be illegal, it would cause major uproar in nation states, it would never pass. So what they did was 'allowed' the ECJ to make a little ruling claiming authority, and then as generations go by, as local courts pile on the deferring agreements, it just 'becomes a reality'.
That's a big speculation of course, but there's just no logic at all for nations handing over Judicial authority without it being fairly clear.
If they were 'nitpicking' at 'some narrow issue' - then fine. There is always ambiguity. But this is not that, it's more fundamental.
It's truly bizarre.
And FYI this is not a resolved issue (See Germany: [1]) and there's still a lot going on.
Also worth a glance [2]
In terms of PiS shenanigans, nuance does matter, I don't think we can just be populist and say 'oh they rejected ECJ Supremacy which is ridiculous and evil' kind of thing. All of these issues are a bit tricky.
I think a lot of people in Europe just think that the ECJ naturally has Supremacy, just like a regular Supreme Court, because that's what was agreed to and Poland is 'off their rocker' - like a US State ignoring a US Supreme Curt ruling. It's not the case though. People would be very surprised at the odd reality.
I don't know about the woulds or would nots, I'm not an expert in constitutional law or international treaties. The former head of the CC is the former. I listen to what he has to say. It is what it is. What I can tell you is that the current situation suits me because there are mechanisms in place that make it considerably harder for local politicians to tighten their grip on power and turn my country into a dictatorship again. I will never support eurosceptic parties precisely because of what happened in Poland and Hungary, among other issues like Holocaust denial.
It's fine that it 'suits you' but that's not what it's about.
If there is no treaty validating ECJ Supremacy, then that's it. Even a 'statement' or 'interpretation' by an Judge or Expert will be called into question.
Also - you may despair in the short run for the authoritative nature of 'Hungary' but there is a much bigger issue and that is the consolidation of power at the EU level.
Hungary has elections for it's leaders.
The EU does not.
You did not vote for Ursula Von Der Leyen. She was not a candidate, and was totally unknown outside Germany before the election. She was not vetted. She had little public history. Voters did not select her.
She was chosen in a backroom deal: "Here is your new President. We selected her for you. You will find about her platform, later, we hope you like it because obviously you didn't vote for it". Ursula von der Layen layed out her vision for EU long after voters even knew who she was.
The EU Treaties only in 2007 even require the selection of the Pres. to even barely take into consideration the 'recommendation' of MEPs, even then, they have no power. MEPs cannot introduce legislation or sanction leaders.
The EU is the least democratic 'layer' of European governance, combined with the fact that it is at the 'top' and sometimes has the most authority, is a pretty scary thing in terms of the balance of power.
So the EU is 'good for dealing with PiS' yes, probably. But there are other, broader issue.
That's how the EU works. You vote for a political direction by choosing between EU party groups. The EUCO defines priorities and the political direction of the EU, not the head of the EC. The EPP which Von Der Leyen is part of won the most seats in the EP, David Maria Sassoli is part of the S&D which has the second most seats in the EP and Charles Michel is part of Renew which has the third most seats in the EP. The comissioners are also part of different other EP groups, yet they all work together. It's somehow similar to the UK where you don't vote for Boris Johnson, but for the Conservative Party. The difference is that the EU is almost always led by a coalition, not a single party.
In Russia people vote for the president, but that does not matter much - what matters is who owns the press and counts the votes. Which is exactly what PiS and Fidesz did: they owned the press. And PiS also messed withe the judges and quite openly admitted to having bough spyware which was used to spy on the opposition. That's the difference between the EU, Poland and Hungary.
These are all valid considerations, but I think you're overestimating the level of equivalent judicial the USSC has for example
> wouldn't it be extremely prudent to parameterize what exactly those authorities are?
TFEU
The ECJ decisions are actually more like recommendations on how the local courts should act.
Countries that don't follow the rulings can't complain if they're suspended from EU resources and mechanisms while that is not solved, like having their exports blocked, be removed from Schengen, etc. (And if they don't like it they're free to complain to the walls since they don't recognize the ECJ...)
ECJ rulings are the law of the land as far as they see it, not a 'recommendation'.
There are no rules around sanctions etc. for countries that don't 'comply'.
It's just 'make it up as they go along'.
The problem is: there is no treaty basis for ECJ Supremacy. By opening that can of worms, the EU may find themselves with a 'big losing hand' and more affirmatively lose their power.
As I pointed out in the previous comments, the issue is unsettled even in Germany.
Indeed and take the negotiated sweet money from Europe as Toilet paper. Which they did due to their maneuver backfiring. Now they increased taxes massively, are grappling with major interest rate hikes putting a lot of normal Januszes in a tough spot to pay their mortgages. The cherry on top is a raging inflation.
You are right they made a political move because they politicized and tribalized everything in the regime. Constitution is nothing but a tool for them. The law is optional. I think you give them too much credit in believing they understand at all what they are doing. My sensation is that the polish democratic institutions were too young and people too insensitive to the concepts of checks and balances to see the real damage being done.
The social rifts are huge as well. On a country that prides itself on its identity and tenacity after the war, it is all a sad tragedy. As an imigrant to Poland it is extremely sad some of the divergences happening at a Christmas table. For what? No ruling party is there for ever. It is all just childishness.
Sorry for the rant, it's just that I just received my new year's salary and it comes with a nice 7% net decrease due to the amazing polski ład tax "bonus".
Indeed and price i pay is that I pay my taxes and do not vote. Freedom of speech remains. People's freedoms of assembly or thought have never been curtailed contrary to what a lot of media outside Poland makes it look like.
I consider my bad mouthing a service because contrary to what might look like, Poland's path is very similar to Portugal. The only difference is that Portugal has good diplomacy(another failure of the current rulers). Rule following, strong institutions and checks and balances are all for foreigners to see in Portugal. Portugal has the gall to diplomaticly promote integration of foreigners and refugees, to then beat them to death on government premises.
More, the model of putting the working class' wealth working for subsidies for the elders and non workers voting blocks is a classic move in Portugal. Everybody knows the population is aging and that the elderly's priorities are low catch fruit,due to their needs being short term in nature.
Poland has everything to not fall into the middle income trap, specifically a very highly educated work force and a strategic position between a lot of prosperous countries.
To finalize i owe no allegiance to socialism and left the country exactly to remove myself from its vice. I find it hard to believe you conflate birth with ideological allegiance. I owe no allegiance to no institution but my family and myself. Unfortunately I did not choose where I am born not where my family is. If we did not have roots here and the language barrier in other European countries was not significant we could have packed, and already froze further commitments here unsure a polexit would wash away our way of living. One thing I picked up from polish experiences in world War 2 is that one should be ready to flee. I call it living like a jew after world War 2. Do not get caught.
I like a lot to live here and would not return to Portugal except on vacations with family and friends and even then...
Could you give some examples of major democracies (except the US, that is in a bad place, and maybe Hungary) where the same is happening and what is happening in those countries?
An authoritarian government elected democratically is still democratic. The whole point of democracy is that the people choose the government they want for themselves.
It's not "most Poles". It's realistically a quarter, maybe a third of the population. Thankfully, the turnout increased from 51% in 2015 (when they won the absolute majority for the first time with 38%) to 68% in the second presidential election vote in 2020 (when they also won, but with a pretty slim margin).
> 30% of the population votes for X, 30% for Y and 40% for Z.
> Now, even if followers of X and Y hate Z more than each other, the winner is still Z.
In this situation, Z would not win a runoff election though. In 2020 The PiS candidate won the presidential election[1]. I think saying that most Poles prefer the current government is imprecise but still truthful, therefore.
Except votes for parties who get less than 5% (if running alone) or 8% of votes (if a Coalition) do not count. So that 40% becomes 52% and suddenly the only thing you can do as a minority party is yell.
While this information is true, I am frustrated that the baseline for appropriate government is set by what happens in the west, or the status quo, or what makes Brussels give us pats on the back. It doesn't take a genius to see that this sort of norm for foreign policy always favours the incumbent.
So I propose that we don't ask why TK doesn't recognize EU law supremacy, but rather reflect that presence in EU means losing sovereignty. This is a consequential loss. The accession occurred without most people realizing this would happen. They believed in an economic union.
I also propose to question the implicit norm, that it's appropriate for an American media conglomerate to own the largest TV network in the country. Western countries are embattled on all fronts. Does it benefit us to have their media in control of our media? My intuition has always been that decision-making apparatus should be located close to the populations it affects. Otherwise it tends in the direction of imperialism.
I feel frustrated by the person who thinks things are going well when Brussels is giving us a pat on the back and thumbs up... ciepła woda w kranie, then it's all good. And who ignores that with the EU connections, we are silently ceding more and more of our sovereignty. In my view, these people are short-sighted and incautious.
PL may not be a real democracy anymore, but EU never was one. We don't elect the President of the European Comission, the head of the executive branch. Bureaucrats decide that. And their pick José Manuel Barroso went to Goldman Sachs shortly after leaving office...
I don't want a person like this at the head of the executive branch of the union with legal supremacy over my country. I much prefer Kaczor and an army of moherowych beretów. Przynajmniej swojskie.
Morally, I find it much more acceptable for governments to use non-coercitive methods like hacking instead of coercitive methods like subpoenas requesting user data.
PiS is acting surprisingly competent, so I think big brother migh be helping them. There's only 3 powers that have direct interest here: Russia, Germany and US.
We had real goveremnt for less than month after 89, then we got russian puppets.
PO, Nowoczesna is definitely pro EU = Germany. Tusk wanted to be singer but failed so he sold the country to Germans. I would even like EU federation but older people (>50yo) are definitely agaist it.
Actually it's during short PiS rule that Poland joined EU and retained own currency. Both good decision in retrospective.
This time around they are 100% propaganda mode and this Pegasus use is definitely overreach. Make no mistake during PO days they also raided and poor teenageers. Now at least it's limited to oposition. Think Aaron Shwarz case.
But TBH they are better at ruling than alternatives and history shows you need to have strong grasp to pull up so to say. If anyone thinks that Germans will allow Polish economy to catch up while they rule is mistaken.
They want to have cheap labor nearby border and Ukrainians prefer to work in PL due to language, which makes PL economy very competitive. Good play would be to make Ukraine part of EU but RUS won't allow it, so next best play for Germany is to win propaganda game in PL or just let Russians pick Ukraine so it's win-win for both Russia and Germany. With nord stream 2 from our PoV it's Ribbentrop-Molotov lite.
I wish there was some better party to vote.
Why I think US is aiding PiS? Germans are their biggest competitors in the west. If they lose race with China then US future will depend on India, Russia and EU. They will want a wry here and Poland is perfect for that, which makes me nervous TBH.
Geopolitically we are like Taiwan or SK of Asia (wry against Japan and China).
How is it not a Watergate? They used Pegasus on the leader of the most important election campaign in the last 7 years in Poland.