Poland and Hungary are threatening to veto the EU budget because they don't want to be forced to adhere to the "rule of law." If the EU caves in to the blackmail, the results may be dramatic. In Poland, the consequences of a politicized legal system are already with us...
https://twitter.com/sikorskiradek/status/1331191449766010881
A few weeks ago, police detained (and handcuffed) a prominent Polish lawyer, Roman Giertych. They searched his house - looking, he has said, not for documents to do with his "case", but for evidence he had been gathering about government corruption.
nytimes.com/2020/10/16/wor…
nytimes.com/2020/10/16/wor…
A few days later, however, a court refused to uphold the detention. The judge said he didn't see that a crime had been committed. An appeals court came to the same conclusion. Restrictions on Giertych - he had been suspended from the practice of law - and others were removed.
In response the national prosecutor has said: 'Courts will not stop us." In other words: *we are going to get him, one way or another. If this case falls apart, we'll find another one.* wyborcza.pl/7,75398,265417…
Courts in Poland are still sufficiently independent to resist this pressure. But up to a tenth of Polish judges are already being disciplined, including for decisions the ruling party dislikes. Polish judges now have to be courageous to rule fairly in politically charged cases
Again: the leaders of the ruling party hate Giertych because he has directly linked them to corruption, more than once. He has also successfully represented opposition figures, including @donaldtusk and - full disclosure - @sikorskiradek
This story will not fit into anybody's simple political narrative: Giertych's roots are in the Polish Catholic-right, not the progressive left. But he also believes in the rule of law. And that is what is now under threat in Poland.
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