Demonstrations in Poland in defence of democracy.

Harry nobody can stoop lower than you that would be impossible.

I'm not an expat, nor do I work in a kindergarten.

Try again ninny goat

Everyone, please focus on topic.

The KODists can rant and rave about democracy and a free press till they're blue in teh face, but the latest tapes show how the Platformer regime dealt with unfavourable reporting. Tusk's right-hand man Raś was recorded asking multi-billionaire Kulczyk if he coudl lean on the Axel Springer Co. to get tabloid Fakt to stop writing up Tusk's daughter's lavish lifestyle. A short while later Fakt's editor got sacked. Tusk also pulled strings to have several Rzepa journalists sacked and then sent his goons to raid the Wprost offices after the tape scandal broke. Tusk didn't apologise for his informal, backroom style of governing, but wanted to find out who dared to expose his chicanery.

Sometimes less is better. Not need to post everywhere, every two hours in almost every thread. That too much.

Merged: Anti-government committee marks June 1989 partially free elections

The self-styled Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD) led a march through the streets of Warsaw to mark the anniversary of the partially free June 1989 election that led to the collapse of communist rule. Every since the conservative PiS party won last October's election, KOD has been staging protest rallies and marches to voice their disapproval of the sweeping reforms the new government has enacted. Former presidents Aleksander Kwaśniewski and Bronisław Komorowski were among the marchers who included advocates of the former pro-business Civic Platform party, retired former communist officials, assorted nomenklatura types and many ordinary citizens swayed by the organizers' pro-democracy rhetoric who believed they were "marching for freedom". Conspicuously absent was Lech Wałęsa who sides with the anti-government committee but says he will join in only when two million people take to the streets.

Just got home, but Polonius : you're deliberately completely wrongly reporting what happened today. There was a huge turnout across many Polish cities and many cities abroad - this was very much a day of decisive protest against PiS.

Decisive protest by the old guard nomklatura crew, PO operatives, retired PRL-era military brass and others suppoting the self-serving status quo and opposed to reforms that will giver ordianry foklk a larger slice of the pie. Decisive? In what way? No, just a re-run of their boringly predictable old antics. They've chanted and ranted before and are probably stupid enough to repeat that futile rumpus again. But it has no bearing on the country as a whole nor on the lives of average Poles.

You're such a a communist.


You constantly refer to Polamd as a pie or trough to be devoured by animals, you sick bastard.

I suppose its all fun to a foreigner like yourself who will never live in Poland.

It's called "projection". He can't imagine a reason to be in government beyond raiding the public coffers so he naturally assumes that's all anyone else wants.

what do you project here mafketis?


decisive protest? in what terms? do you believe PiS will now give in to the protester demands? I honestly don't understand you

I'm in favor of 'rule of law'. PiS is all about 'rule of party leader' aka the second coming of the PRL (in style if not always content).

I will kindly remind you then the PO government happily ignored around 40 rulings by the Constitutional tribunal in their 8 years - is this the rule of law you are talking about

furthermore - that PiS broke the law is not even clear - the constitution in these aspects is not unambiguous to say the least (it is not explicitly saying that the President needs to sing judges nominations instantly and the constitution does not explicitly say what kind of majority the Tribunal needs to make rulings with - in other instances the Constitution explicitly says what kind of majority is necessary)

anyway the Constitution explicitly says that the Tribunal is bound to operate according to a bill passed by Sejm - which Rzepliński ignored

That myth was already debunked, as the Constitutional Tribunal posted the complete list. What actually happened was that the PO/PSL government simply chose not to take any action - which meant they respected the ruling of the tribunal. They didn't attempt to enforce the unconstitutional provisions - if they had, PiS would have been screaming from the rooftops about it.


It's very clear. The Constitution says very clearly that rulings of the TK are final and binding.


However, the Venice Commission already agreed that it's complete nonsense for the TK not to be able to rule on this. In law, the established order is when you pass such laws, you leave a period between signing the law and it coming into law. The lack of a consultation process, the rushing into law - it's very difficult to see how this law holds any legal weight.

If you believe that law is law regardless of how it's passed, then please don't cry when a future government passes a law overnight that all members of PiS are to be immediately stripped of Polish citizenship and placed in detention camps in Siberia. That would also be legal according to your logic.

The TK was fullly entitled to rule on the PiS-amended TK law and declare it unconstitutional but first they had to proceed in accordance with the then binding law and not rule according to an outdated one.


"Decisive" only among wishful thinkers! Even the inflated KOD figure of 50,000 marchers was below the 57,000 for the 7 May rumpus. Even if some day they actually do manage to drag 250,000 into the streets, nothing will change for the average Pole. Policy is not made by rabble on the streets, but by democratically elected authorities!!!

PRL thinking.

Please feel most welcome to keep on claiming that, this is a free country and all opinions can be voiced, no matter how foolish they might be and how utterly wrong they are. But try to remember that when it comes to matters of law the only opinions that matter at all are those of the courts; and the courts have made it crystal clear that the TK acted exactly as it should have done. That is how the rule of law works, but it's entirely understandable that some people prefer the rule of the Party to the rule of law, especially those people who look back on the communist era as the good old days.

Rzepliński and his TK are playing poltiics and are crypto-supporters of the oppositon who coordinate their activities with the Platformers. Is that how law courts should operate? Or maybe in your view it's OK when judges are in cahoots with PO but not with PiS?

That's your opinion, the decision of the people who matter is very different.

The people who matter are all on the government serving the nation in pursuti of Law and Justice. Publishing an illicit ruling based on an outdated law would be a criminal offence.

HA HA HA HA!!!! That has GOT to be the funniest thing ever written here. A bunch of PRL wannabe's scamming low information voters is "serving the nation".

By all means, keep your comedy career going!

That would be true if we again had the rule of the Party, but we don't, we have the rule of law, despite Chairman Kaczynski and his minions thinking and wanting otherwise. And Polish law is crystal clear on this, even the TK judges personally appointed by Chairman Kaczynski agree that the TK's actions were completely legal.


You can repeat that claim until you're blue in the face, it still won't be in the slightest bit true. The people who decide if criminal offences have been committed are called judges, and they are very clear that no criminal offence would be committed. One would have to expect that judges would say that the criminal offence is refusing to obey the directions of the TK, but judges haven't been asked that, because the public prosecutor who wanted to ask them that question was promptly purged.

The TK are obliged to follow binding law. Their failure to do so has invaldiated any rulings they may issue. The TK are not entitled to say: Hey lads, tomorrow let's rule on something under the 1993 or 2002 law. No, can legally functionin under and only udner the currently binding law, not some random antiquated one.

And please no more bollocks about a bald Negro homo or some such...

Actually, they aren't. The TK is only bound to the Constitution, not to lesser laws passed by the National Assembly.

If the TK law in question had been passed with the presence of a vacatio legis period, then it would be regarded as legally binding. If you read the Venice Commission report, you can see that without the vacatio legis period, the law is pretty much redundant.

But don't worry, Polonius. With your pro-Sejm attitude, you surely won't complain when the next government rules PiS to have been a terrorist organisation and immediately banned from public life. The TK will rule it to be unconstitutional, but the next government can simply ignore them because they passed a law requiring the TK to be only comprised of people that pledged their loyalty to the current government.

So the Sejm could pass a law that the TK cannot declare any laws unconstitutional and the TK would be powerless to declare that law unconstitutional?

Help me out here, I'm kind of shaky on PRL logic.

Polonius is merely adopting the old PRL attitude of "the law exists to serve and protect the Party".

By his logic, the government could pass a law saying that the TK can only meet once every four years on the day before the election, and that the TK was prohibited from ruling on the law in question.

When vital state interests are involved, vacatio legis may be dispensed with and he law may go into effect as soon as it is published in the Journal of Laws.

You seem not to understand that the Polish nation got sick of PO's scamsterism, gambling scandal, taep scandal, Ambergold disaster, OFE heist, dipping in the till, nest-featering and other self-serving acts which ignored the interests of the nation as a whole.

So in effect, you're advocating that any law may be introduced immediately without consultation and without the vacatio legis period?

Sorry, but European standards are higher than that, regardless of what Kaczyński thinks.

Don't worry though Polonius, I'm sure the next government will make sure that there's a law passed without delay that requires the immediate arrest of all top PiS members, with the same law requiring them to be taken straight in front of a judge and convicted of abuse of office. We can, of course, expect you to write pieces on how vital state interests required such measures and how you support it.

The law exists to serve the nation as a whole, not just the post-communist KOR/SB/GW/secret service/oligarch/media/foreign-interest clique feathering their own nest for 26 years under Soros' watchful eye.

it is very clear in the constitution that the Tribunal has to proceed according to the rules passed by Sejm - simple as that - the ruling in question was not really a ruling according to the rules passed by Sejm simple as that


Venice Commission has no say in Poland


the constitution states otherwise

Nope. Article 195, paragraph 1.