ON POLAND

 Making sense of the current tangle is not being aided by the absolute shower of crap that is our media. I looked a little further into the issue and the bare bones are from Notes From Poland:

The standoff between the government and opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki over Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal (TK) deepened today, as Maciej Berek, whom Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently described as his “right-hand man”, took his oath as a new judge without the presence of the president. Berek is now the fifth judge to take their oath without presidential approval. The previous four have been denied entry to the TK, and speculation is rife that the government may soon take action to ensure that the excluded judges are able to take up their positions. 

Under Polish law, a new TK judge must swear an oath “before the president”. However, since Berek was elected to the TK by the government’s majority in parliament in early September, Nawrocki has refused to swear him in. The president claims that Berek has not presented evidence that he meets the statutory requirement of having practiced as a legal counsel for at least 10 years. Berek says he has done so. Nawrocki has also expressed his opposition to the fact that Berek has gone from serving in Tusk’s cabinet, where he was minister in charge of overseeing the implementation of policy, to becoming a TK judge. 

Even some members of Tusk’s ruling coalition opposed Berek’s candidacy, saying that it contradicted the government’s earlier pledges to “depoliticise” the judicial system, including by banning anyone who had served as a politician in the last four years from becoming a TK judge. 

With no invitation from Nawrocki forthcoming, on Wednesday morning Berek instead swore his oath at a ceremony organised in parliament. He declared that he was directing the oath towards the president, despite Nawrocki not being present. 

The development came a day after the Venice Commission, an advisory body to the Council of Europe on constitutional law, had issued an opinion effectively supporting the government’s position on the crisis around the TK. The commission found that the Polish president should swear in TK judges chosen by parliament “without delay” and does not have the power to review their election. It added that, if the president refuses to receive a judge’s oath, they are justified in taking it without him being present. The opinion was welcomed by Tusk and his government. However, Nawrocki’s spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, pointed out that the Venice Commission’s opinions are advisory and not legally binding. 

Earlier this year, four other TK judges chosen by parliament similarly organised their own swearing-in ceremony in parliament after Nawrocki failed to invite them to take their oaths before him. However, when they arrived at the TK to take up their positions, they were prevented from doing so by the court’s chief justice, Bogdan Święczkowski, who was appointed under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government (and had previously served as a minister in that government). Święczkowski argues that the judges cannot take up their positions unless they swear an oath in the presence of Nawrocki, who was elected as president last year with the support of PiS. 

In May, the European Court of Human Rights ordered that the four judges be accepted onto the TK. However, Święczkowski has so far refused to comply, arguing that the ECHR does not have the authority to make such a decision. Since replacing PiS in office in December 2023, Tusk’s government has refused to recognise the legitimacy of the TK, pointing to the fact that some of its judges were unlawfully appointed under PiS. It has ignored all rulings issued by the tribunal. Until this year, the ruling coalition refused to fill new vacancies that resulted from the expiration of judges’ nine-year terms or their retirement. However, that position changed in March, when it began filling the backlog. So far this year, parliament has chosen eight new judges, meaning that its candidates in theory now have a majority on the 15-person court. However, Nawrocki has only sworn in three of those judges, with the other refused entry to the TK.

We really find the amusing bit here in the history of Polish Constitutional efforts:

The Constitution of 1791 and the Polaniec manifesto Poland’s first written constitution was proposed on 3 May 1791, making it the second oldest written constitution in the world. The constitution stipulated the decentralization of state power and emphasized the notion of division of powers whilst at the same time providing for a system of checks and balances. 

The Sejm was the official legislative branch, consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Aware of the inefficient structure of government of the past, the outcome of an all powerful legislative, the constitution aimed at limiting the powers of the parliament in order to balance it to the other branches of the state. 

For example, the liberum veto, a parliamentary device in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which had formerly required unanimity in the decision making process, was abolished. 

Moreover, the constitution put an end to royal elections by restoring the system of a hereditary monarchy. Only in effect for a short period, the 1791 constitution became a symbol of Poland’s national identity and strengthened the thought of a special connection between Catholicism and constitutionalism, due to the declaration of the supremacy of Catholicism in the constitution. 

The Constitution of 1791 was followed by the Polaniec Manifesto on 7 May 1794, which represents a famous legal document of the Polish uprising against its Russian occupiers, who invaded the country in 1792. The Manifesto intended to motivate the peasantry to fight for the freedom of Poland by granting peasants broad civil liberties, most of which had not been included in the constitution of 1791.

The tyranny of the Courts or the imbalance of power has led to the ruin of most places in Europe and those places that were colonized and brought into existence by the European Kings and their minions. People always forget that the Court was the invention of the Kings to put the appearance of judicial restraint and fairness in front of the people as if it was something real when it was obvious even to the dolts of yore that the Court was simply an extension of the Monarch.

We keep seeing democrats (little d) trying to wedge a powerful court into the system of government as if that is somehow going to act as a universal restraint on tyranny and it obviously won't because the courts are stuffed with men and women who have their damned opinions and backgrounds and understandings and are also, of course, wholly in the grip of the men who appointed them. (Yes, even in the USA the independent judiciary is a myth maintained by the massive efforts by all parties to hide the truth. The courts act as extensions of the State and do the Will of the State. Some people have a really hard time understanding that the State is far more then a written Constitution, bicameral legislature and a president.)

The veneer is really peeling off the judiciary everywhere these days. Everyone everywhere has forgotten that the whole idea of the independent judiciary was to CONCEAL who was actually running the State. The idiot judges became absolutely insane in their indifference to hiding their intent or who they really work for and it is really doing some damage to the idea of Constitutional democracy.

I have to admit, locking up the opposition and forbidding the people to have any meaningful choice in government is simply an open invitation to bloodshed. As I recall, when it gets to the point where nothing is believed and 96% of the people are poodles, the game turns to anarchy and simple destruction of the ruling class. Politics and progress are not even on the table. It's all now down to making them suffer. A lot. 

You'll have some idea of where you stand on the scale of true government 'by the people/for the people' if you simply look at who appears in public with obvious bodyguards. When the judges need bodyguards, it's over.  

You know, those idiots could consider bringing back the The Golden Bull. Scroll down to the very bottom of the linked document and read the final paragraph. Oh, wait. The EU already brought back the Golden Bull. If you read the whole text, it is obvious.