EU triggers Article 7, could strip Poland of voting rights

an Serbian media article

EU triggers Article 7, could strip Poland of voting rights
b92/eng/news/world.php?yyyy=2017&mm=12&dd=20&nav_id=103084


What happening with EU? Is that even possible to do it within EU what EC doing? Its open attack on sovereignty. Not that I`m surprised but, still. Its madness

How so? The current government is trying to bring the court system and judges under direct partisan control so that they will issue judgement according to what the government wants at the moment and is jettisoning any judges that might no be willing to rule in the government's favor. It could not be clearer that that's what they're doing in violation of EU and international legal standards.

They also helped force this issue hoping it will turn the public against the EU (rather than against them).

I realize that being Serbian you don't understand concepts like 'rule of law' and 'civil society' preferring primitive tribal loyalties above all else but that's not the world that most Polish people want to live in (I hope....)

It's also worth noting that the reform is making businesses jittery because once it's finished the government can go after private businesses and loot them for their political cronies at will.

where do you draw this conclusion from - please quote facts

Polish people want a just and working judiciary system - which they were stripped ever since the collapse of communism

This is absolutely transparent, as is the series of minor but deliberate provocations. It's obviously trying to force an issue, and our EU's softly-softly approach just enrages them further.

Direct political appointment of judges and (de facto) mass firings of sitting judges. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably partisan political control of the court system and the dismantling of the rule of law (also see Ziobro's use of public prosecutors in his jihad against a private doctor who was cleared of any wrongdoing).


Yeah I want a healthy gin and tonic that makes me lose weight and improves muscle tone, wishin' and hopin' won't create a healthy system.

Please provide the opinion of international experts who say the reform doesn't like a third world (or communist era) horror show.

direct political appointment of judges? you are clearly making this up, the Sejm representatives in the KRS will have to chosen by the 3/5 majority of Sejm - mass firing of judges - sure after they reach a retirement age

the appointing of judges will according to the proposed law be much more democratic than it is in Germany - just read the wikipedia entry on German judiciary (with understanding of course)

In Germany the chief prosecutor is not the justice minister.

In Germany each Lander has input into judicial appointments

Maybe link to the pages for Iran or Cuba

Or just the Venice Commission's comments about the 'justice' system of the USSR.

not just input but according to wikipedia the justice minister of any given Land MAKES the decision to appoint or not appoint someone as judge and also on their further promotion - and the justice minister is chosen by the ruling party/coalition as you would expect which can has as low as 50 per cent of votes in Landstag


what difference does it make - are you going to say that chief prosecutor in Germany is not a political position - as far as I know it is a political position in the states (Attorney General)


heh - I wasn't aware of this and just found out that the head of the Department of Justice in the USA is the Attorney General - so it's the same situation as in Poland

It is not because in the US judges get life time terms and thus are appointed and confirmed by different presidents and senates over many years.

The American Bar Association has strongly criticised the Polish actions, which have no parallels in the developed democracies

only in the supreme court my friend

in many states (the majority afaik) judges are elected for a term (and probably can even be dismissed during the term if enough people wish for it)

Yes but all courts have ultimate recourse to the supreme court. It is not easy to use the US courts to try political opponents- which is what Ziobro and PiS want

oh you know what PiS want - how exactly?

and again - it is a fact that the Supreme Court judges are there for life but their appoinment is purely political/partisan by the governing president and there are fights and machinations around the nominations like after the passing of the late judge Scalia - where the Senate refused hearing of Obama candidate for the post until Obama's term run out

Yes - but given no president can serve more than 2 life terms there is an excellent check and balance on judicial appointments

Unlike PL where Ziobro could prosecute Tusk and have him tried by PiS appointed judges

To hand out my money to people who have 7 kids and are too lazy to work for a living?

judges will be randomly alotted to all cases - and no - there will be no massive purge of regular judges for the simple reason that there are not enough people to replace them - and again it will be the KRS appointing judges not PiS and the representatives of the Sejm in the KRS will be elected with the 3/5 majority in the chamber - so you are just spreading false propaganda


how many families with 7 kids do you know if I may ask?

Ziobro is an elected official - if people find that his actions are against their best interests they will choose a different party next time don't you worry

I believe there was one family posing for a photo with the man himself on Duda's website, thanking him for "rescuing" them from poverty. 7 kids if I remember rightly. It's so easy to be magnanimous with other people's money.

God bless Hungary for supporting Poland in that madhouse that is EU. Serbian TV rapports that Hungary intend to veto any decision against Poland. Orban is wise.

so you know precisely one family with seven kids and only because they were made famous by Duda, quite telling

again, the 500+ programme has been wholly funded this year by decreasing the VAT gap that was there for the whole time of the PO+PSL rule - do you prefer this money spent on poor families or on VAT scammers, just asking

If PIS really cared about poor families, then they would raise the threshold for zero percent tax to 40,000 zl a year for a married couple with two kids. What is it now? 8,000? They're having a laugh. Instead there is an incentive for layabout behaviour and abdication of responsibility.

What is the point of middle class families having a savings account for their children from the 500? We could go on and on, Of course it is a vote winner; people love a handout.

The very children who "benefit" will be the generation paying for this governments' waste. As before, re: the EU, we remember the shitehole that large swathes of |Poland was before EU grants started clearing away 40 years of totalitarian nonsense. It's going to take 3 generations to clear up the mess as it is, without giving freebies away with a packet of Kelloggs cornflakes. Instead Poles with no real economic manifesto blether on about "sovereignty" and "our country".

Bunch of schoolboys. Like Dilbert, avoid criticism. Do nothing to build a sustainable economy instead.
Give people the chance to earn, and spend their money as they choose, and the freedom to stay safe from this ranting madman Ziobro and his paranoid gang, and Poles will always rise to the top. Instead, we have this new Prime minister, if I understand him right, promising to cut the health service (at least 11 percent of GDP should be spent on health, instead of playing these populist games with the economy IMO)

Bloody hell gumishu, you will get me drinking again at this rate:))

for what it's worth, I learned a bunch of new words today:

darmozjad parasite
komisarz ludowy some kind of PRL officer
moczymorda alcoholic, człowiek nadużywający alkoholu (although I think that would be better attributabe to Jean-Claude "resident creep" Juncker)
folksdojczka Volksdeutscher, Volksdeutsche (not sure if that refers to male or female)
kołchoźnik member of a collective farm

Only komuch I already knew. And these are probably the more nicer attributes for that Timmerthingy guy, since they were printed in the comments section of various news articles. A guy that btw freakishly reminds me of Erich Mielke. Both claimed that they always only wanted "the best" for the people.

Well, as he is clearly guilty any independent judge worth his salt would found him guilty. The fight against that reform is aimed to keep corrupt, politicized judges in power to make sure that anyone suckling a post-commie corrupt system, no matter how guilty never would face prison or even a fine.


If you (after 27 YEARS in the country and married to the Polish national) you would master the local language on a basic level instead of drinking, you would know that 500+ is not about helping poor families but to offer incentive to Polish people to procreate.

And if you knew anything about incentive, you would realise that this is going to create a new generation dependent on the state. What happens when the well runs dry and there is no more 500 anything?

The 500 plus is not about people having three or four kids, as only the poorer in society will play that game, And they will stay poor if they expect the state to be responsible for them. How much would 500 zl buy for your kids Ironside? Or, more to the point, how much can the father drink?

Answer my question, why not raise the tax threshold? Not a vote winner, as that would mean working for a living to feed those kids?

folksdojczka is for a female

I agree with you that 500+ programme is a bit cynical and aimed at winning votes easily as tax threshold raising would only affect those who actually work but it did have an impact on the economy - there is over 5 per cent rise in retail sales in 2017 compared to 2016 (in some months the year to year rise was even above 10 per cent) - at the same time the alcohol consupmtion in Poland hasn't risen dramatically (if I remember correctly the rise was about 2 per cent) so it looks like the money from 500+ is more or less well spent - also the unemployment is at historical low (counting from the communist times where it was formally null) - which means there is not really that many people who only rely on the programme as their sole source of income)

Either you write political satire in your spare time or you have entirely failed to understand how a justice system is actually supposed to work.

please enlighten us Ziutek

**** EU it's just a way for globalist to ruin your culture and heritage, taking immigrants in and kill your values and religion!

The system starts from the impartiality of the judge and uses that to assess the guilt of the suspect.
It doesn't start from the guilt of the suspect and use that to assess the impartiality of the judge.