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Op-ed: Poland at Crossroads – The Constitutional Tragedy Continues…Part I

By PAULINA STARSKI, 8 January 2016
Poland Constitutional Tribunal (photo credit: PAP)
Poland Constitutional Tribunal (photo credit: PAP)
<p><strong>Right before Christmas the governing right-wing party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS – which paradoxically translates “Law and Justice”) wrote another chapter in the tragic Polish saga on the disempowerment of the Constitutional Tribunal and the devaluation of the holy grail of modern democracies – the principle of separation of powers – by adopting another amendment statute to the rules governing the Tribunal (<a href="http://isap.sejm.gov.pl/DetailsServlet?id=WDU20150002217">Dz.U. 2015 poz. 2217</a>). The current developments are highly dangerous and alarming from the perspective of constitutional law. The Polish constitution faces an existential challenge.
Read the full article here: Junge Wissenschaft im Öffentlichen Recht

Comments

Polishboy 8 January 2016
The analysis of the decision-making in the Polish Constitutional Tribunal seems to support the existence of some party alignment. It is to say that judicial behavior is influenced by the ideology, either because judges’ preferences coincide with the interests of a specific party or because the judges are incentivized to show their loyalty to a party. Party alignment exists but subject to institutional influences. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10602-015-9200-8 Different statistic Constitutional Court of Croatia http://www.usud.hr/uploads/Statistical%20information%20-%20period%20from%201990%20to%2031%20December%202014.pdf Hungary http://www.alkotmanybirosag.hu/constitutional-court/statistics http://www.alkotmanybirosag.hu/letoltesek/2014_12_31_en.pdf http://www.us-rs.si/en/press/annual-reports/

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