By Anon
1 million euro (1,384,250 SGD) a day for ignoring the rule of law; that is the penalty Brussels is leveraging towards a more and more authoritarian Polish government.
In January 2020, the ruling Polish Law and Justice Party (Prawo I Sprawiedliwość - Pis ) introduced new measures to give the government sweeping control over the country's judicial system. The government can now remove any independent judges who “oppose judicial reform”. This move garnered widespread condemnation from many, including the European Union.
A year later in 2021, the Pis further diminished court independence across Poland. Zbigniew Ziobro, Polish Justice Minister, was granted the power to promote judges to higher courts (known as “secondment”) and remove judges from appointment (with no reasoning required). Following the decision, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled this power to be in violation of EU law.
This came just a day after Brussels levied financial penalties of up to 1 million euros (1,384,250 SGD) per day if Warsaw fails to acknowledge the ECJ and immediately pauses the activity of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court. The European Court of Human Rights also ruled that the chamber is “not a lawful tribunal due to political interference”.
Poland’s parliament also attempted to silence a popular independent TV channel that had criticised the ruling Pis party. Pis stated that the decision to ban companies outside of the European Economic Area from owning broadcasting networks was aimed at preventing Chinese and Russian interference. Critics, among them the US (a vital military ally), said the move was aimed at silencing TVN24, owned by US-based Discovery. TVN24 was the government's most vocal media opposition. The law did not pass, but the proposition deepened worries of stifling media freedom and human rights in Poland from the EU. These worries began when just months after being elected, Polish president Andrzej Duda signed legislation to allow his government to appoint the leadership of the public media sector.
As judicial independence and media freedom come under threat, women’s rights come under threat too. Poland's near-total abortion ban has many women's rights activists and opposition politicians fearing many women will have to face unmatched surveillance due to the party's conservative viewpoints. As Poland has also created a “pregnancy register” which gives the police and any prosecutors against women access to data that allows them to track when the women's pregnancies end, this includes miscarriages.
A leader of a women's rights group, Marta Lempart, also spoke out on the situation saying she doesn’t trust the government to keep information about women's pregnancies away from the police and prosecutors. She spoke about how many women are being questioned about their pregnancy by the police and that "being pregnant means that police can come to you any time and prosecutors can come to you to ask you questions about your pregnancy."
Every year thousands of women leave Poland in order to get access to abortion care, and many try and import abortion pills from different countries around the world. Polish women in tough economic situations are forced to depend on organisations that may have very limited resources.
How long will women have to fight to get rights for their own bodies? To what extent do we define legal and illegal abortion? Even Poland was forced to clarify their laws in 2021 after a 30-year-old woman died due to complications in her pregnancy.
All these human rights abuses continue to strain relationships with the European Union and questions of a possible “Polexit” continue to rise. Are LGBTQ+ rights next to go in Poland? Over 105 cities and municipalities have already adopted “LGBT-free zone” declarations (one third of Poland). The president has called LGBTQ+ “a foreign ideology far worse than communism’ - this in a country which only 33 years ago had experienced the horrors of communism first-hand. As free media, women, minorities and democracy continue to be compromised by yet another far-right populist European leader, could Poland be the next domino to fall in a post-Brexit EU?
Works Cited
Amnesty International. "Poland: Regression on Abortion Access Harms Women." Amnesty International, 28 Jan. 2022, www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/01/poland-regression-on-abortion-access-harms-women/.
Associated Press. "Poland, With Near-total Abortion Ban, to Record Pregnancies." VOA, 7 June 2022, www.voanews.com/a/poland-with-near-total-abortion-ban-to-record-pregnancies-/6606318.html.
Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com). "EU's Top Court Says Polish Rules on Appointing Judges Violate EU Law." DW.COM, 16 Nov. 2021, www.dw.com/en/eus-top-court-says-polish-rules-on-appointing-judges-violate-eu-law/a-59833245. Accessed 24 Sept. 2022.
"Poland Clarifies Abortion Law After Protests over Mother’s Death." BBC News, 8 Nov. 2021, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59206683.
"Polish Media Laws: Government Takes Control of State Media." BBC News, 7 Jan. 2016, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35257105.
Press Corner-Independence of Polish judges: Commission asks European Court of Justice for financial penalties against Poland on the activity of the Disciplinary Chamber. European Comission, 2021, ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_21_4587. Accessed 24 Sept. 2022.
Press Releases PLENARY SESSION LIBE. "Poland: Attacks on Media Freedom and the EU Legal Order Need to Stop | News | European Parliament." European Comission, 16 Sept. 2021, www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20210910IPR11928/poland-attacks-on-media-freedom-and-the-eu-legal-order-need-to-stop. Accessed 24 Sept. 2022.
Reporters without Borders. "Poland." Bienvenue Sur Le Site De Reporters Sans Frontières | RSF, rsf.org/en/country/poland.
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