Jakub Jaraczewski Profile picture
Research Coordinator at @DemocracyR working on @reconstitutEU, "Johnny Rotten of the interface between liberal democratic theory and practice" (@BDStanley 2024)
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Jun 10 7 tweets 2 min read
⚖️🇪🇺 Quick take: what do the European Parliament elections mean for the rule of law? Well, the biggest champions of independent courts and free media took some (ALDE/Renew) or severe (Greens) beating, so it will likely be EPP primarily shaping the agenda on the values front. 1/ Image The good news: EPP, at least looking at their manifesto, may not be so deeply into the rule of law as centrists are, but still has some important items, such as championing the effective use of the rule of law conditionality mechanism with clear "no values = no EU cash". 2/ Image
Feb 29 8 tweets 2 min read
🇪🇺⚖️💶🇵🇱 Right on time: the Brussels-Warsaw rule of law clash is (mostly) over. The Commission unlocks the 137b EUR of Polish RRF and cohesion funds, and I have never had more mixed feelings about something in this job before. 1/ One thing to remember: at stake here were matters related to disciplinary proceedings against judges and monitoring fundamental rights. Other areas of PL rule of law crisis were tackled in separate procedures - Art. 7 (soon to go away, too) and infringement cases at CJEU. 2/
Oct 30, 2023 16 tweets 3 min read
🇵🇱⚖️Poland doesn't yet have a new parliament in place, let alone a government, but discussions on reforms and restoring the rule of law are already ongoing. I'd like to address one particular element of these conversations which has had me scratching my head. 1/ Image It's about the draft laws on the judiciary proposed by Iustitia, an association of Polish judges. Iustitia has developed a package of laws meant to restore and improve the Polish judiciary, addressing i.a. the situation of "new" judges and the captured Judiciary Council. 2/
Jun 2, 2023 10 tweets 3 min read
🇵🇱⚖️I've been asked a few times over the last few days about President Duda's move to send the "Lex Tusk" law (parliamentary committee to investigate Russian influence) to the Constitutional Tribunal. This requires a dive into PL constitutional law, so here it goes: 1/ Image The President of Poland can request the Tribunal to review a bill *prior* to signing it into force. Such preventive judicial review is binding for the President, if the Tribunal finds the law to be compatible with the Constitution/ratified intl treaties, he must sign it. 2/
Jun 1, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
🇺🇦⚖️ The incoming barrage of ECtHR rulings finding a violation of Art. 14 + Art. 8 through lack of recognition for same-sex unions hits Ukraine. I can bet my pants that Russian propaganda will run with this despite Russia being where it is with not respecting the rights of 🏳️‍🌈
Jun 1, 2023 5 tweets 2 min read
🇺🇦⚖️🇪🇺 A very important report by us at @DemocracyR and our Ukrainian partners: Ukraine's Democratic Institutions During the War: A Check-Up, a look at how Ukraine's democratic institutions perform under literal fire and in the context of accession to EU. 1/ A concise (just 18 pages of your time!) look at how Ukrainian executive, legislative and judiciary institutions are doing during an extreme crash-test of democracy that is a war. My colleagues examine the possible reforms and challenges of an EU accession at wartime. 2/
May 31, 2023 16 tweets 4 min read
🇵🇱⚖️🇪🇺 Morning everyone, today the Polish Constitutional Tribunal will apparently hold hearings in two important cases: Kpt 1/17 on the President's power to pardon (10:00 Warsaw time), and K 1/23 on the new law on disciplinary proceedings concerning judges (12:00 Warsaw time). 1/ Image Following months of deadlock with a group of six "rogue" judges refusing to sit on the bench in key politically-charged cases, it seems that we're having some breakthrough and perhaps today the Tribunal will be able to summon at least 11 judges needed to hear either case. 2/
Mar 27, 2023 18 tweets 5 min read
🇮🇱 🇵🇱🇭🇺⚖️Israel, Hungary, Poland, rule of law protests – a thread. Even as I type this, Israeli society is out there in full force protesting against a ‘reform’ of the judiciary pushed through by PM Netanyahu and the ruling coalition. 1/ What Bibi, JarKacz and Viktor have apparently in common is the desire to remove the judiciary as an obstacle to their power. The details between the three countries vary, but the underlying idea is the same – a guy doesn’t want judges and courts to limit his rule. 2/
Jan 6, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
🇪🇺⚖️🇺🇸 Next week at the Court of Justice of the European Union is wild (luckily not for rule of law), starting with a very f awesome hearing on Wednesday. It's apparently an all-American week coming up at Kirchberg, because the second notable intellectual property hearing next Friday involves Bruce Wayne. (h/t: @StevePeers)
Dec 15, 2022 9 tweets 2 min read
🇪🇺⚖️🇵🇱 The most important today's AG opinion regarding Poland is out in the 1m EUR/day C-204/21 infringement case concerning the Disciplinary Chamber and the "muzzle law". This time it was AG Collins tackling the Polish rule of law situation. 1/ TL;DR - the AG thinks that the controversial provisions of "muzzle law" violate EU law. Some of those were repealed by this year's earlier reform that dismantled the Disciplinary Chamber, and further ones (but not all) are proposed to be dropped in the new draft law. 2/
Dec 14, 2022 31 tweets 8 min read
🇵🇱⚖️🇪🇺 Good morning; after a sleepless night, here's the thread on the new draft law on the Supreme Court (and other laws) lodged by a group of PiS deputies with the Sejm towards implementing a new Poland - EU Commission deal on unlocking the recovery fund. Live updates! 1/ The big one, and hold on to your seats here - the draft proposes to entirely remove the disciplinary matters of judges and the test of judicial independence from the competences of the Supreme Court and to move them to ... the Supreme Administrative Court. 2/
Dec 13, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
🇵🇱⚖️🇪🇺 Things are moving at a fast rate with the rule of law in EU this week. Hours after the news of a new Poland - Commission deal and legislative changes regarding the judiciary, a new draft law is already at Sejm! I've just got off the plane and will tackle this tomorrow. Yes, of course, it's been submitted by a bunch of PiS deputies instead of the government; this way, they can skip all those tiresomely time-consuming public consultations. I'll really need a vacation after this week is done with me.
Dec 12, 2022 6 tweets 1 min read
🇭🇺⚖️🇪🇺💰 Predictably, Orban caved in on Ukraine and tax, got his private pool cut down slightly less (55 vs 65%) and has a recovery fund unlock with payout pending milestones. The Council could have been better, could be much worse on this. 1/ The EU is slowly realising that the key to handling Hungary is Viktor's boundless vanity, and the key to handling Poland is in setting the ruling coalition against each other. Took them long enough with both. 2/
Dec 12, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
🇵🇱⚖️Calendar alert: this week has just gotten slightly less ugly for me as Polish Constitutional Tribunal has rescheduled the hearing in the case K 8/21 (financial penalties for non-compliance with CJEU interim measures, anti C-204/21) from this Wed to 24 January. 1/ This is especially important given that this Thursday, AG Collins will issue the opinion in case C-204/21. Of course, as usual, no announcement or reason for the Polish Tribunal shifting the hearing was given, but I'm grateful that I won't have to deal with both in one week. 2/
Dec 11, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
🇶🇦💰🇪🇺 Luckily Qataris decided to bribe a relatively harmless institution that is the European Parliament, imagine what would happen if they went after the Committee of Regions. Plot twist: EU set up the Parliament to be relatively weak compared to the Council/Commission in a deliberate move to fool oil sheikhs who were taught that to win a country, you need to buy its legislature.
Dec 7, 2022 11 tweets 3 min read
🇵🇱⚖️My attempts to do anything else than the Polish rule of law story this week are apparently doomed. Out of the complete blue, the Polish ombudsman, prof. Marcin Wiącek, has fired his only female deputy - dr Hanna Machińska. 1/ Dr Machińska is a veteran scholar, human rights defender and official with a stellar career featuring jobs such as being the head of the Council of Europe office in Warsaw. She became the deputy ombudsman under @Adbodnar in 2017. 2/
Dec 7, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
🇵🇱⚖️Polish rule of law crisis escalation 354: one of the remaining judges suspended by the Disciplinary Chamber, Maciej Ferek, has been accused by the neo-National Council of Judiciary of harassing another judge by leaving stale herring, pickled ogórki and sauerkraut on her desk. The neo-National Council of Judiciary is dead serious about it and wants a disciplinary investigation to be carried out regarding the food habits of judge Ferek. I sometimes wonder if those people are aware of how this story sounds, but it seems like they're too far gone.
Dec 7, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
🇵🇱⚖️ Yesterday was a whirlwind for the rule of law in Poland - in the evening, the European Court of Human Rights issued an interim measure, ordering Polish authorities to reverse the decision to forcibly reassign three judges from the criminal department of a court. 1/ The three judges were moved against their will to the labour and social security department of the court by their superiors - two pro-governmental judges (and MoJ Ziobro's disciplinary officers) in a move that could not be read in another way than harassment. 2/
Dec 6, 2022 10 tweets 3 min read
🇵🇱⚖️"Polish Constitutional Tribunal has lost its ability to lawfully adjudicate" says the Polish Supreme Administrative Court, the other top court in the country that you don't hear so much about as Constitutional Tribunal and Supreme Court take up all the airwaves. 1/ SAC was hearing a case concerning the Prime Minister's Chancellery refusing to reveal the list of supporting signatures of candidates for the neo-National Council of Judiciary - another element of Polish rule of law crisis. 2/
Dec 5, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
ẞrrrrrrrrrrt. Poor @gepardtatze, his phone will run out of battery due to notifications on being tagged with this.
Dec 5, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
🇵🇱⚛️ An (un)expected side-effect of the war - support for building nuclear power plants in Poland jumped from a measly 39% in May 2021 to 75% in Nov 2022. If you want popular support for a policy change in Poland, just tell the society that doing the thing will be like sticking a fork in Russia's eye, 75% support in 2 months.