Poland’s government faces another test (Poland and the Venice Commission)

On March 11th the Venice Commission will look at changes to the constitutional tribunal

SINCE coming to power in October last year, Poland’s new government has caused plenty of controversy. One of the biggest changes pushed through by the government in December, to the constitutional tribunal, has proved particularly contentious.

One of the changes to the tribunal means that all verdicts need to be approved by a two-thirds majority, rather than just a simple majority. Critics fear this will make it harder for the government’s opponents to query legislation: in order to do so they would have to have the support of one of the judges from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party to qualify. On March 9th the tribunal itself deemed the changes to be unconstitutional.

Then on March 11th the Venice Commission, an advisory body to the Council of Europe (which predates the European Union and is the guardian of the European Convention on Human Rights) released a report saying that some of the changes were a threat not just to rule of law, but to democracy and human rights. (The commission also finds fault with the previous Polish government, too, however.)

The Polish government decided not to publish, and so not to recognise, the tribunal’s verdict. It also shrugged off the Venice Commission's opinion before it was even published (a draft was leaked to a Polish newspaper in late February). Beata Szydlo, the prime minister, said it is not binding “in the sense that the state needs to enact it”, pointing out that Poland is a “sovereign state”. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of PiS, dismissed the draft as “legally absurd”. Besides PiS’s simmering anger at meddling foreigners, Witold Waszczykowski, the foreign minister, was also fingered, as it was he who requested the opinion of the commission. “We all learn from our mistakes”, said Mr Waszczykowski, amid media speculation that he could lose his job. 

Despite such controversies, PiS remains the most popular party in Poland. Polls put it well ahead of the two main opposition parties, the liberal Nowoczesna and Civic Platform (PO), the party which led the previous government. The current government’s flagship promises, among them a child subsidy of 500 zloty ($129) per month, are broadly popular. Yet the mood is becoming more fraught. One in two Poles distrust Mr Kaczynski. 

Protests against the changes pushed through by PiS continue to draw thousands. “I lived through all of communism but have never seen society so divided,” said an elderly protester at a recent protest outside the prime minister’s chancellery in Warsaw. Lawyers are worried by the government’s changes to the tribunal, too. Adam Bodnar, Poland’s commissioner for human rights, speaks of “a de facto change of the constitution”. If the tribunal is paralysed, there is no barrier to adopting further laws concentrating power and limiting civil rights, he says

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Still, PiS shows no intention of backing down. A call for compromise from Kazimierz Ujazdowski, a PiS member of the European Parliament, published in Rzeczpospolita, a newspaper, on March 7th was criticised in the party. “We will solve Polish disputes ourselves”, Mr Kaczynski asserted during a visit to north-eastern Poland this week, accusing protesters of being backed by forces that want to “keep Poland as low as possible”. Yet the Venice Commission’s opinion will be hard to muffle. Poland looks likely to be on course for many more arguments with the rest of Europe.

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