CONSTITUTIONAL COURT AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS IN POLAND (original) (raw)

Poland, which along with Hungary, used to be regarded as the leading example of a successful transition to democracy, is now experiencing (along with Hungary) processes of the so-called “illiberal backsliding”. As, unlike in Hungary, the new parliamentary majority is too weak to control constitutional amendments, the process of changes is developing “next” to the principles and rules of the 1997 Constitution of Poland. This paper is focused on the presentation of the consecutive stages of the political absorption of the Court in 2015-2016 (I). It further considers the situation of the “new” Court in its post-2016 form (II), the main streams of criticism of the reform (III), the changes in the situation of the remaining segments of the judicial branch (IV), the reactions of the CJEU and ECtHR (V), and ends with few concluding remarks (VI)