Poles oppose controversial judicial reforms

855-Poland-634 — Crowds in Poland have called on the president to veto the reforms

After "hundreds of thousands of Poles took to the streets", the Polish president Andrzej Duda has decided to veto two of three proposed reforms to the judiciary, says Christian Davies in The Guardian. The suggested changes would have "allowed the justice minister to immediately fire all Supreme Court justices and choose their replacements". Critics claim that this would have "given the government control over the country's judicial system". However, he still accepted legislation that "allows the justice minister, who is also the prosecutor general, to name the heads of all lower courts".

Despite the veto decision, Brussels may still take action against Warsaw, although "the imposition of sanctions to take away voting rights requires unanimity, an unlikely prospect given that Hungary has pledged to block any such move", says Alex Barker in the Financial Times. One option is to ask EU member states to issue a formal warning to Warsaw. This comes at a time when Brussels is also planning action "against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for flouting EU laws requiring them to take a quota of refugees".

Duda's vetoes may be part of a clever tactical move by the ruling party "to make the matter murkier by creating the impression that the political control wouldn't be limited to the ruling party", says Leonid Bershidsky on Bloomberg. Indeed, the Polish president has said that he only wants the bills "fine-tuned" rather than scrapped entirely. And "after this anticlimax", opposition to the amended bills "may well be less spirited".

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