WHY THIS MATTERS: When Poland\u2019s voters brought Donald Tusk\u2019s government to power two years ago, it was seen as a retreat from the populism embraced by its predecessors. But reversing the politicization of the justice system has proved difficult. As one expert told AP, \u201cPolitical polarization makes protecting the rule of law harder, as voters will accept anything the party they support pursues \u2014 including the takeover of courts \u2014 and will reject anything that the opposite side proposes.\u201d It\u2019s a struggle that holds lessons for other countries with political divides, including Hungary and the United States.<\/p>\n
WARSAW, Poland (AP) \u2014 When Donald Tusk\u2019s government came to power<\/a> in Poland two years ago, it had high ambitions to roll back a political takeover of the judiciary by its nationalist, conservative predecessor. <\/p>\n The reality proved more complicated.<\/p>\n Law and Justice (PiS), which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, established political control<\/a> over key judicial institutions by stacking higher courts with friendly judges, and punishing its critics with disciplinary action or assignments to far-away locations. It appointed enough sympathetic judges to the Constitutional Tribunal that a PiS-aligned president can delay government plans by sending them for constitutional review.<\/p>\n European courts have condemned the PiS changes, while regular Poles found themselves facing legal chaos. Efforts to undo them, however, have been blocked by two successive PiS-aligned presidents. <\/p>\n For over a decade, Poland has been deeply polarized between a bloc of urban, pro-EU voters backing Tusk and a mix of conservatives and other voters frustrated with Poland\u2019s post-socialist development, who have favored PiS. The gridlock in justice further divides the population. <\/p>\n Tusk, who came to power promising to fix the situation, removed his first justice minister, Adam Bodnar, in July because he wasn\u2019t seeing enough results.<\/p>\n \u201cAll those dreams have faded away by now and we can forget about them,\u201d Bodnar told The Associated Press. \u201cWe will be in a strange process for the next years.\u201d<\/p>\n His successor, Waldemar \u017burek, a former judge known for his opposition to PiS judicial changes, has taken a more confrontational approach. <\/p>\n In October, \u017burek announced prosecutors were ready to press charges<\/a> against former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, the architect of the PiS changes. Prosecutors allege Ziobro misused a fund for victims of violence, including for the purchase of Israeli Pegasus surveillance software.<\/a><\/p>\n Tusk\u2019s party says PiS used Pegasus to spy illegally on political opponents while in power. Ziobro says he acted lawfully.<\/p>\n If PiS returns to power at the next parliamentary elections in two years\u2019 time, \u017burek knows he could pay a high price. He speaks with unusual ease about the possibility that he could end up in prison, saying \u201cit would be an honor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have zero tolerance for criminals,\u201d \u017burek told The Associated Press. He said he will not allow the abuse of power to go unpunished, \u201ceven if I am threatened that I will be sitting in jail for a long time.\u201d <\/p>\n Presidential veto<\/p>\n To fix the judicial system, the government must pass laws \u2014 but under the Polish Constitution, those laws must be approved by the president. <\/p>\n This is where the coalition\u2019s project ran aground. <\/p>\n Initially, Tusk\u2019s ministers were forced to cohabit with President Andrzej Duda<\/a>, a PiS ally, until the end of his term in August 2025. They saw this as a temporary inconvenience.<\/p>\n As justice minister, Bodnar did propose draft laws and negotiated with the presidential office. Duda didn\u2019t budge.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was natural to count on the change of president,\u201d Bodnar said in an interview in Warsaw. <\/p>\n Among his priorities was to reestablish the independence of the body responsible for appointing judges, the National Council of the Judiciary, known by its Polish initials KRS.<\/p>\n In 2018, PiS changed the rules<\/a> governing KRS, bringing it under party control. As a result, 60% of judges now sitting on Poland\u2019s Supreme Court were appointed by the reshaped council. <\/p>\n Bodnar wanted to put KRS back under the control of judges as well as restoring the neutrality of the Constitutional Tribunal. <\/p>\n Instead, what happened was that Nawrocki, an independent candidate backed by PiS, narrowly won a presidential election<\/a> in June. Analysts said the failure to restore judicial independence was a factor in the defeat of Tusk\u2019s coalition. <\/p>\n Where presidential approval wasn\u2019t needed, Bodnar says he achieved positive change. He removed court presidents appointed by PiS and ended disciplinary cases against independent judges. Poland joined the European public prosecutor\u2019s office, which means better accountability for how EU funds are spent.<\/p>\n Yet he was perceived as handling the process with kid gloves, advancing carefully and legalistically. Tusk felt he needed someone ready to throw the gloves off. Enter Waldemar \u017burek. <\/p>\n Gloves off<\/p>\n After Nawrocki\u2019s victory, \u017burek presented detailed proposals to fix the justice system, but he says there are already signals from the president\u2019s office that they will be vetoed. In November, Nawrocki announced he would not nominate to higher courts judges who opposed PiS changes to the judicial system. <\/p>\n \u201cI would much more prefer it if we could sit down at the table and talk, even in front of cameras,\u201d \u017burek said. \u201cI want to end the Polish-Polish war.\u201d <\/p>\n In the absence of legislative progress, \u017burek\u2019s office has announced efforts to prosecute allies of PiS. The cases are the result of painstaking work by prosecutors, who for months have been investigating accusations that the former government used public office for political goals. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we can\u2019t introduce legislation because the president is blocking us, then we are going to go about it in a different way,\u201d is how legal expert Jakub Jaraczewski, from NGO Democracy Reporting International, sums up Tusk\u2019s tactics. \u201cWe will go after the \u2018bad guys\u2019 and we will make them pay.\u201d<\/p>\n Even without convictions, \u201cdisclosing the truth\u201d about the abuse of power is important for informing voters, said Bodnar. <\/p>\n Lessons learned<\/p>\n Nawrocki\u2019s election in June indicates that a coalition of Law and Justice and the far-right would win general elections in two years if they decided to run together. <\/p>\n So has Tusk\u2019s coalition made enough progress in shoring up judicial independence to ensure PiS will not take revenge if it returns to power? <\/p>\n \u017burek does not answer directly. Instead, he speaks about his readiness to face any costs, including prison time, in fighting for democracy. <\/p>\n If Tusk\u2019s camp does manage to hold on to power, it could wait out some of the PiS appointments until they\u2019ve retired or finished their terms, says Jaraczewski. <\/p>\n But the problems with the Polish judiciary run deeper than the rule-of-law crisis, he cautions. The system is plagued with delays and inefficiencies, undermining trust. <\/p>\n \u017burek has said he wants to fix this, listing it as one of his two priorities alongside restoring judicial independence. However, that would take time, money and cooperation between the new government and PiS appointees. <\/p>\n Jaraczewski says a \u201cbigger conversation\u201d is needed about how to safeguard democracy, pointing to Hungary, where the European Union has raised the alarm<\/a> about the decline in the rule of law, and the United States, where President Donald Trump has tested the limits<\/a> of executive power. <\/p>\n \u201cOur constitutional orders should be strengthened against these kinds of takeovers, against the actions of politicians who openly ignore the rule of law,\u201d Jaraczewski said. <\/p>\n Even then, preserving democracy will still depend on electing people inclined to respect the rules, he says. <\/p>\n \u201cPolitical polarization makes protecting the rule of law harder, as voters will accept anything the party they support pursues \u2014 including the takeover of courts \u2014 and will reject anything that the opposite side proposes, including attempts to undo the damage,\u201d Jaraczewski said. It\u2019s therefore \u201ccrucial to reduce polarization and educate society.\u201d<\/p>\n When PiS was in power, independent Polish judges made an unprecedented effort to reach out to normal citizens, by marching in the streets, organizing a countrywide information tour about the constitution, and speaking at music festivals. <\/p>\n \u201cThe democrats must go beyond the sphere of those who voted for them,\u201d \u017burek argues. \u201cWe must speak also to those who do not understand the language of lawyers, but who take part in elections and can be manipulated by politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHY THIS MATTERS: When Poland\u2019s voters brought Donald Tusk\u2019s government to power two years ago, it was seen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[4991,12691,11588,3946,6006,1664,1102,12,279,8620,1065,939,1665,7167,12692,248,2508,51,11870,52,12690,12689],"class_list":{"0":"post-16098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-donald-tusk","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-adam-bodnar","10":"tag-andrzej-duda","11":"tag-conservatism","12":"tag-constitutional-law","13":"tag-courts","14":"tag-democracy","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-donald-tusk","17":"tag-economic-policy","18":"tag-elections","19":"tag-european-union","20":"tag-general-news","21":"tag-government-policy","22":"tag-jakub-jaraczewski","23":"tag-poland","24":"tag-poland-government","25":"tag-politics","26":"tag-waldemar-zurek","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-wtm","29":"tag-zbigniew-ziobro"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116368189857328300","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}