“A government that ignores court rulings, is quite simply undemocratic”.
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The Polish government has refused to release the verdict of the court, saying the judges weren’t following the very rules they were assessing.
The Polish government will ask parliament to review a recommendation of the Venice Commission, an advisory panel to the rights body the Council of Europe, on Poland’s legal reform, a government spokesman said on Saturday.
Also Saturday, the government, which remains popular with its conservative electorate, said that it still refuses to publish a ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal that struck down the legislative amendments passed in December that have blocked the court and plunged the nation into crisis.
Separately the European Commission has opened a process to monitor the rule of law in Poland which could end up in Warsaw having its vote in the European Union suspended.
That judgment is likely to put Poland on a fresh collision course with the EU, which has referred Poland to a review at the European Commission over concerns of a retrenchment of democracy and rule of law. The EU, which Poland joined in 2004, and the United States have also expressed concerns.
Critics say the changes would restrict the power to scrutinise government legislation of the court.
Tens of thousands of Poles took to Facebook Thursday to support the country’s top court in a constitutional battle against the right-wing government.
The EU country has been mired in crisis over a government bid to change how the Constitutional Court reaches its decisions, in a move that has sparked outrage at home and overseas.
On Wednesday, the constitutional court ruled that the new rules affecting it were illegal.
It has argued the constitutional court is too powerful, allied to the last administration and determined to block reforms the party was elected to push through – charges dismissed by the court and rights groups.
Any serious backsliding of democracy in Poland would be a huge blow to democrats across the entire ex-communist region, which ousted communist governments beginning in 1989.
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“We’re not sending in police with bullets against people, they are allowed to express their views”.
