Any ideas toward the constitutional court crisis in Poland?

**zweihander** · 05-16-2016, 08:05

**Fragony** · 05-16-2016, 08:25

Is it really a constutional crisis or just a shift, more a messing with the balance rather than a constitutional crisis I'd say, just wait and see I guess

**Lizardo** · 05-16-2016, 12:37

The civic platform the last party to be in power fcked it up in 2015 who unconstituionaly changed 5 of the judges. It's not a crisis.

**Fragony** · 05-16-2016, 19:53

Indeed it's not a crisis, only for eurocrats who see their control over former eastblock-countries slipping. Nothing weird is happening in Poland. Mamma duck just can't get the ducklings in a row anymore.

**Kralizec** · 05-19-2016, 12:24

It most certainly IS a constitutional crisis. I don't speak Polish but have read up on it anyway.

I forgot some of the details, but it amounts to this:

In 2015 the outgoing parliament (in which Civic Platform ruled) passed some legislation to name several new judges, replacing other judges whose mandate was about to expire. The problem was: only 3 of the 5 "slots" actually expired within the old parliamentary period. The other two slots would only become vacant a few months later, during the new parliamentary period. All 5 of them concerned the Constitutional Tribunal.

The Law and Justice party already held the office of President during the old period. The president had formally renounced party affiliation as required, but by all appearances he's still loyal to his old party. Anyway, he would be entirely right to make a fuss about the "future" appointments but instead refused to swear in all five new judges to the Constitutional Tribunal.
The Law and Justice party won a large majority in parliament and went on to form the new government. They, likewise, said they wouldn't recognise any of the 5 appointments from the outgoing parliament and named 5 new C.T. judges even though only 2 of them actually became vacant during the new parliamentary period. The President then swore in all 5 of the appointments from the new parliament.

Then, the C.T. ruled that that the outgoing parliament was wrong with the two appointments that fell outside their parliamentary period, but that the other three were valid. Conversely, the appointments made by the new parliament were only valid for the two that fell within their parliamentary period. It also ruled that the three "old" judges were office holders from the moment that the bills were passed, and that the oath ceremony in front of the President is a formality, not a requirement for the appointment to be valid. The C.T. refuses to let the "invalid" judges sit on the bench.

The situation is further complicated by some legislation that the new parliament, ruled by the Law and Justice party, passed afterwards concerning the Constitutional Tribunal. Most of it seems harmless on first sight, some of it does not, but in any case: most of it is unconstitutional according to the C.T. The new government says this ruling is invalid because it wasn't made with the new legislation in mind (even though the new legislation was the thing under constitutional review). It refused to publish the rulings in the official journals and said that this, too, makes the verdicts invalid.

Fast forward: the rest of the judiciary machine in Poland, as well as most local governments, back the position of the Constitutional Tribunal. The Council of Europe (not an EU institution, technically) has offered moral support to the judiciary, as have the majority of EU member states and the USA. The Civic Platform (old government, now opposition) has ackowledged its share of mistakes in this debacle. The new government, which is ultra-conservative and nationalist, probably realises that they've overplayed their hand but can't back down from their position without losing face.

**Fragony** · 05-19-2016, 16:50

You are much more knowledagble about these so could you explain why something weird happened. If that is a constitutional crisis whein the Netherlands have been living in one our whole life. (we did and still do)

To elaborate, the Netherlands in a constitutional-monarchy, but that fat King of us has less royal-blood than the royal-cheese at the Burger-King. Whch makes his punica-oasis unconstitutional de facto. Do we care about that, I do I want that entire family out along with their 'Argentinian' family, but nothing is done even if it's inconsitutional but that is a different discussion. And this was more of a rant than adressing sorry.

**Kralizec** · 05-19-2016, 18:50

Fragony:
See our Basic Law / Constitution, article 24. Link

It says our king or queen has to be a legal successor to King Willem I of the Netherlands. That article refers to this guy, not the other guy who gave us our independence and who is also sometimes reffered to as Willem I (never as "King", though)

It's a historical fact that our current royal family isn't decended from William the Silent, because his line died out. After that happened, a descendent from his younger brother was put forward as Stadtholder and this line would later become the royal family.

There were some rumours that Queen Wilhelmina isn't really the daughter of William III. I browsed wikipedia to see what the origin was of that and I found this. Personally I think it's just a stupid rumour and/or a joke. But even if it weren't - Wilhelmina was still the legal child of William III and therefore his legal successor - our laws don't require any proof of biological paternity.

My personal opinion is that we should dump them anyway, though.