Poland, Hungary Join Together To Challenge EU Bureaucracy
by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 27, 2017
The rifts within the EU continue to widen as Poland and Hungary join together in opposition to the EU bureaucracy.
Soon after Poland’s ultra-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in October 2015, the Polish parliament passed a law allowing the government to appoint the judges of its choosing to the highest court and not recognize those chosen by its predecessor, the liberal Civic Platform party.
The crisis began in 2015 when Civic Platform, the party then in power, improperly nominated two judges to the constitutional court. When the PiS won October’s elections, it refused to recognize them and also blocked three other judges who had been properly selected by parliament. PiS also wants the court to hear cases in chronological order, rather than setting its own priorities for tackling its caseload. The Polish government believes it is unfair that a constitutional court with a majority of judges appointed under the previous parliament should be able to scupper flagship policies for which PiS secured a mandate in democratic elections in 2015.
Legal experts advising the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights watchdog, have concluded that the changes breach the rule of law, democracy and human rights. The Council and the European Parliament have expressed their concerns and urged the government to backtrack on its reform.The constitutional crisis has already given rise to a string of large demonstrations by a new Polish popular movement, the Committee for the Defence of Democracy.
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