Following a protest rally in Warsaw on Sunday, where up to 500,000 people demonstrated while waving Polish and European Union flags, the Polish nationalist government reacted angrily on Monday to the most recent legal setback in its long-standing feud with the European bloc over the rule of law. The European Court of Justice delivered a sharp rebuke to Poland over illegal attempts to limit the independence of the Polish judiciary, to which the hard-line justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, responded by claiming that it “cannot be accepted as credible because the main European court is corrupt.” Despite the fact that ignoring the verdict may cost Poland billions of dollars in necessary European funding, he vowed not to comply with it. The governing party’s view of the court decision was summed up by a message flashed on the screen during a news bulletin on TVP, the primary state broadcaster: “Eurocrats attack Poland yet again!”
The European Union ruling and Poland’s defiantly dismissive response brought an end to the temporary truce between Warsaw and Brussels that had come about due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The bloc’s criticism of Poland had been curbed by events in neighboring Ukraine, where Poland received extensive praise for its role in sheltering millions of refugees and aiding Kyiv against Russia’s military aggression. While consensus among Poland’s political parties regarding their obligation to help Ukraine remains, it has recently been overshadowed by increasingly vicious domestic political battles before the October election.
The verdict against Poland was delivered just the day after opposition parties mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to protest the Polish government’s disputes with the European Union and its abuse of state broadcasting for propaganda purposes, as well as other power-related abuses. It was the largest public display of anti-government sentiment since the Solidarity union movement’s anti-Communist demonstrations in the 1980s.
State television, which is widely viewed in rural areas and serves as the political base for Law and Justice, mostly ignored the massive protests. In contrast, it provided extensive coverage of a march by just a few thousand people in April, organized by the government to protest criticism of Pope John Paul II on a Polish television channel owned by an American company. According to opinion polls, Law and Justice, in power since 2015, will eke out a narrow victory in October thanks to its vocal defense of traditional Christian values against what it derides as “L.G.B.T. ideology,” along with its frequent assaults on the European Union as a threat to Polish sovereignty and a recently expanded program of welfare payments to needy families.
Claiming that “the verdict was not written by judges but politicians,” Mr. Ziobro said that the decision by the Luxembourg-based court “represents a clear violation of European treaties.” His comments indicated that Poland will now escalate the dispute and file countersuits challenging the ruling’s conformity with treaties dating back to 1957, which provide the legal underpinnings of the European Union.
Didier Reynders, the bloc’s justice commissioner, however, declared the matter closed, stating, “You can disagree with the European Commission, but the judgment of the E.U. Court of Justice settles the matter for good.” He praised the decision, calling it “a significant day for the restoration of independent justice in Poland.” He called for the legislation overhauling the Polish judiciary “to be adjusted accordingly,” a move that is unlikely to happen, even though the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, acknowledged last month that Mr. Ziobro’s judicial reforms “have not worked out too well.” With elections for Parliament approaching, Law and Justice requires Mr. Ziobro, who leads his own far-right party that could prove critical to forming a coalition government in the event of a close result between the ruling party and the primary opposition force, Civic Platform.
Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting.
