Justice

Right-Wing President Bows To Public/International Pressure On Judicial Reform. Hmm...

So you're saying there's a chance?

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Hope this helps

Polish President Andrzej Duda will veto a controversial judicial reform law. The law would have essentially allowed Duda, and his Law and Justice party, to replace Polish Supreme Court Justices with political appointees. It was strongly condemned by international leaders and even our own American Bar Association.

And with that, I have exhausted my knowledge of Polish politics and the pros and cons of Polish judicial reform. Poland: it’s a place that gets f**ked with by Germany or Russia, depending on which one of those powers is feeling chesty. Give me my blue wedge in Trivial Pursuit and let’s move on.

But what I did notice is what it took to get a right-wing, “populist” regime to back down. Here are two notes from the BBC story about the veto:

  • Demonstrations have taken place in dozens of Polish cities, from Poznan and Lublin to Krakow, Gdansk and Warsaw, and there have been calls for the protests to continue.
  • The European Commission had threatened to impose sanctions this week if the reforms were not scrapped.

Domestic uprisings and international pressure seem like a good road map for stopping bad judicial policy. But I fear that they are two things we don’t have going for us in America. Americans are ignorant about our courts, and will not take to the streets to defend them. I mean, just last year a political party stole a Supreme Court seat, and Americans did nothing.

Beyond our borders, there’s no sense that the international community has the stones to impose sanctions on our rogue regime. Foreign governments seem more inclined to placate Trump than punish him. The problem is exacerbated because so much of the international apparatus needs American funding.

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It’s kind of depressing to think that nobody is coming to save us from ourselves. But it’s worth remembering that even if the rest of the world would still like our money and guns, it doesn’t need our “leadership.” We are free to spiral down the drain in whatever way seems best to us, without necessarily dragging everybody else down with us.

Poland president vetoes bill forcing top justices’ resignations; ABA had voiced concern [ABA Journal]
Poland’s President Duda vetoes judicial reforms after protests [BBC]

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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