Return will take time
Poland begins restoring the rule of law
November 15, 2023, 1:05 a.m
It will probably be a few weeks before Poland gets a new government. While the PiS party does not want to give up the field yet, the new majority in parliament is working to restore the broken rule of law.
Just under a month after the opposition’s election victory, the new majority in the Polish parliament took a first step towards restoring the rule of law. Parliament appointed its four representatives to the National Judicial Council (KRS), which is responsible for appointing judges and monitoring their independence, replacing members appointed by the right-wing nationalist PiS party.
However, the new appointments only change the majority in the KRS slightly; it is in fact still controlled by PiS members. Before the vote on the new KRS members, the new pro-European Parliament President Szymon Holownia said that given the “damage caused by the PiS in the KRS”, it could take “several months” until it is reformed.
The EU has been at loggerheads with Poland since 2017 over its controversial judicial reform. At that time, the PiS government had, among other things, reformed the National Judicial Council. Brussels accused Warsaw of massively restricting the rule of law. In 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on the reformed Judicial Council that it did not ensure sufficient independence of the judiciary from the government and legislation. A little later, the Polish Supreme Court made a similar decision.
The return to the rule of law is one of the central election promises of former Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s opposition liberal-conservative citizens’ coalition, which secured a majority in the parliamentary election.
The PiS had become the strongest force on October 15th. However, due to the lack of willing coalition partners, it is very unlikely that it will achieve a parliamentary majority. Regardless of this, President Andrzej Duda gave her the order to form a government. The opposition parties are preparing to take over government, but first have to wait for the expected failure of the PiS efforts.