2ND MIRACLE OF THE VISTULA: youth mysteriously appear out of nowhere!

regular judges will be appointed by KRS just like now, and could be removed by the new Disciplinary branch of the Supreme Court, the KRS (National Judiciary Board) will be elected differently - till now the majority of the seats in KRS was divided between various branches and levels of the judiciary and the minority were elected by the Sejm and Senate (in effect the judiciary was an authority unto itself) - from now on the majority will be elected by the 3/5 of the Sejm

I haven't heard of any police provocations during PiS rule, maybe you have - if so please share

as of recently - 2015 and 2016 Independence Day marches in Warsaw went completely peacefully - I am not saying it was all the police fault before but there was evidence on youtube of police undercover starting riots - also Paweł Wojtunik told Elżbieta Bieńkowska on one of the Sowa tapes that it was Bartłomiej Sikorski's people (police or ABW don't remember now) who set the guard post before the Russian embassy on fire during one of the marches - this is how far they went with the provocations

so maybe it's the issue of police and ABW leadership

Are you trying to deliberately mislead people?

You're asking the wrong person. The text of the reforms must be published somewhere on the net. Like the Sejm website.

Should to situation get out of hand (something that cannot be entirely ruled out) with vioence spreading to different cities, is it inconceivable that NATO would agree to set up an internal peace-keepng mission to patrol streets with Polish police and army troops? Sounds outlandish, but history is full of surprises and unexpected twists. The advantage of this is that Polish protesters might be more reluctant to attack or disobey NATO or American troops. NATO might agree to that solution to avert distrubances along their eastern flank.

The "total opposition" needs not recreate anythign. PRL folks, PZPR and SB types, PRL-era entertainers and academics as well as their families who fear de-communisation like the plague are already its integral part.

Have you forgotten how the Tusk regime dealt with demonstrators including Solkidarity, miners and others?

oh please name one?

One person?

one provocation

Read the newspapers.

oh you can't name a single one - how telling

Don't be as silly as usual. Thee have been numerous cases. But you want someone to name one and then you'll weakly bluster that it wasn't 'really' the case for a whole raft of reasons that are just excuses.

Because you suppport the PiS junta, something that the thousands of young voters turning out nightly most certainly do not.

you just can't name a single one - now go on babbling

Very eloquent of you.

Worth saying that the sudden explosion of activism by younger voters has totally wrongfooted PiS and their supporters. And they hate it when things don't go to plan.

President Duda vetoes KRS and High Court reforms, offers to use legslative intiaitve to create his own version and present to the Sejm within two months. He also said the opposition had crossed the redline between the right to peacefully demonstrate and calls to ovethrow the authorities. The only place where the government can be overthrow is the polling station.

Worth a thread on it's own.

Enjoy your humble pie Polonious. Duda may have saved a lot of people from prison time in the future, and I am not referring to the opposition.

I have just listened to the President's announcement in which he stated he is going to veto both bills.
In the speech he mentioned that he had talked to professor Zofia Romaszewska. The distinguished professor told him that she had already lived in a state in which Prokurator Generalny had all the power and that is not the way it should be.

He critcised policticians of both the leading party and the opposition for making the citizens live in fear. That's how I feel. I live here and I still believe I can make my own conscious opinions about what is happening in Poland regardless of what political party is in the government.

@Polonius I'm not your kaprysik. Stop patronising people just because they don't follow your opinions. I'm not a commie or a fool.

@gumishu You keep talking about prowokacje policji. The police forces consist of the same guys as two years ago. They need to follow the orders. If there is a riot, they need to react. If someone is throwing bricks at them, should they just wait? I guess it's a matter of perspective in your case. If it's people you agree with that attack the police, you think it's prowokacja policji. If it's the opposition, you believe it's the police taking the right measures. Just like with elections in Poland, whenever PiS lost they kept screaming about 'sfalszowane wybory'. But when they won, everything was fine ...

To sum up, I'm far from loving PiS. I strongly believe PO won the elections just because too many people chose the lesser evil on two occasions and failed in the end as people realised they hadn't done much and just kept threatening with PiS.

I have a right to make my own decisions and doubt what political parties do no matter what fraction they are. I still do. I can only hope the President will keep vetoing any bills that try to take our freedoms.

Hello Dougpol! Welcome back, nice to see you, to see you nice :))

Well it's about time that Duda piped up. What a weakling he is, hiding in his holiday home while there's civil unrest on the streets, desperately waiting for his advisors to tell him what to do.


Yes indeed and he's very conscious that if he didn't use his Veto, overthrown is exactly what he would be at the next election. I told you, didn't I, spineless object though he is, he has a potentially long career ahead of him if he can wriggle out from under Kaczyński's yoke - serving his own interests just like the rest.

Thanks Atch. I just came out of the woodwork for a while because I was fearing that this wonderful adopted home would be sent back into ruin. Now we can carry on with getting along:)

Time to pop the champagne. And to hell with Ziobro.

Of course if Duda hadn't used his powers of Veto, then the next election could have been rigged anyway to get him back into power but power over what? I mean what state would Poland be in without the EU and America, which is basically what it's facing if it continues down the present route. I think the Polish government was politically naieve and arrogant enough to think that they could isolate themselves from the EU with no consequences (probably down to Hungary's dubious friendship which would block the unanimous vote needed to impose sanctions) but they probably didn't bank on the USA expressing 'concern' over the proposed reforms.

There is indeed a more rational explanation: as opposition to the PiSlamic State's illegal power grab grows, the media arms of the PiSlamic State have become more and more desperate. We've seen TVPiS making such claims as "The opposition tries to organise a coup against the democratically elected government"

"Poor attendance outside parliament despite Schetyna's calls for a coup"
"Shocking declarations of opposition militants"
"The opposition announces that it will break the law"

Since then they've gone even further:
"Paedophiles oppose the change in law"
"The street revolt is a way to bring Islamic immigrants to Poland"
"The question is to what extent the protest against the judicial reforms is pre-planned, as shows the fact that everyone has the same candles in their hands"

"Astroturfing is a planned attack"
and
"Foreign PR agencies organised the protests in Poland"

Of course, just as the Warsaw correspondent for the Podunk County Polish Pig Farmer's Gazette used to faithfully trot out the Party line for both the readers of that publication, 'Polish' Po comes here and repeats what he's just heard on Radio Maybach.


I'm glad you have.

Ziobro needs to go now; unless I misunderstand the situation (which is possible...) his position is surely untenable.

I'm thouroughly disappointed with what Duda has done - I think he has done away with reelection - many people will not trust him anymore

What did I say about Duda lacking credibility?? And you didn't agree. And now a couple of days later.............

Duda has a couple of problems which render him a poor leader. The first is that he lacks real nuts and bolts experience. He was a minor player, handpicked for his position by the Old Guard precisely because he was nobody of importance with no history and no baggage. Therefore he made an acceptable 'new face of PIS' to lull the public and indeed the wider world into a mis-placed sense of confidence. Following on from that is problem number two which is that he is not his own man, he is JK's man and he lacks the courage and decisiveness to make his own decisions. When faced with a crisis which has actually been brought about by his mentor, he therefore has no idea how to proceed and obviously the mentor wants him to carry on, but Duda is dimly aware that this will have disastrous consequences. He showed no leadership whatsoever over the last few days, he simply allowed the nation to flounder in no-man's land while he tried to act this act together.

Gumi, Duda is a lightweight and that's a fact. I wonder if Tusk had a word in his ear. He had requested a meeting I know, but perhaps a well placed phone call did the trick.

Great job dude duda!

So if Duda does what you think he should do - this is good, but when Duda does otherwise - this is bad. We need you and not Duda as President!

Except for the country's well-paid judges who consider themselves a privileged and untouchable elite, many Poles with different political leanings have criticized the existing court system as ineffective, sluggish and often corrupt. Even simple cases can take years to resolve unless the plaintiff pays a pre-trial "visit" to the judge. The judiciary is also riddled with older judges who had sent dissidents and Solidarity activists to jail in communist Poland.

Whether Duda's surprise initiative will remedy those problem and restore some semblance of calm to a nation torn by unending political strife remains to be seen. Poland's liberal Civic Platform party has never come to terms with its 2015 election defeat and has attacked every decision of the conservative government ever since. But thanks to a robust economy and people-friendly legislation, Law and Justice continues to enjoy the Polish nation's highest support. In many surveys it has been double that of the Civic Platform.

Or earlier! Wałęsa has mentioned forcing the govenremnt to jump out of upstairs windows and helping them if they refuse. Komrowowski advocates whacking opponents with a wooden plank. Then there was the Laurel and Hardy of Polish sedition (Kramek & Broniatowski) with step by step instructions on how to bring down the Polish government. That included urging the creation of self-defence squads, switching off the electricity for the Sejm, Senate, government and presidential office and calling a general strike. Not very ballot-box-oriented moves, eh Atch?

Well I'm afraid that's the level of Polish politics Polly. It's like that because there's no history of gradual reform towards a modern democracy over a time span of couple of hundred years as was the experience further west.