Visiting Professor, Wojciech Sadurski, wrote an op-ed in EuroNews about his views on Poland’s upcoming parliamentary elections in October 2019.
In response to your letter of 31 May, let me inform you that I will neither be willing nor able to vote for your party in the next parliamentary elections. My reasons divide into two categories: firstly, those having to do with what the current Polish presidency, government and parliamentary majority, all under your direct control, have already done to Poland since 2015, and secondly, those based on my reasonable predictions about what you and your party intend to pursue and achieve in the next parliamentary term.
Regarding the first category, I wish to highlight the following effects of your rule so far:
• A paralysis of the Constitutional Tribunal and its conversion into an obedient helper of the government and parliamentary majority, contrary to the fundamental purpose of a constitutional court which is to balance and check the political majority. Also planting a person (in an unconstitutional manner) as the Chief Justice of that Tribunal, who lacks even basic legal and ethical predispositions for the office but displaying instead an unlimited loyalty towards you;
• Establishing a partial control over all judges (only “partial” due to intransigence of many judges and the interventions by the Court of Justice of the EU), including members of the Supreme Court. You have led a purge of the Supreme Court and leading officials in all common courts, overseeing a system of disciplinary control of the judiciary supervised by the Minister of Justice, who employs it against judges handing down judgments contrary to the political preferences of the current government;
• Erosion of any independence of the public prosecutor’s office (prokuratura) and the merger of the public prosecution system with that of the Ministry of Justice. As a result, the public prosecution system is now headed by the Minister of Justice, an active politician in the government you control;…