People demonstrate in support of the Supreme Court judges in front of the Supreme Court building in Warsaw on Tuesday evening.
Posted on 07/04/2018 5:30:12 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The law, which came into force at midnight, mandates that all Supreme Court judges over the age of 65 must retire and will force 27 of the 72 judges off the bench, according to the European Union.
"My presence here is not about politics, I am here to protect the rule of law," Gersdorf, who is 65, said at the court's entrance...
...Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, insists that the measures are needed and will strengthen democracy.
"Each EU state has the right to shape their legal system according to their own traditions," Morawiecki told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday.
...
The 27 judges affected by the new law could submit an application to Poland's President -- an ally of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party -- to extend their mandate. According to the Supreme Court, 16 of them did so. However, Gersdorf said she "did not submit and will not submit" such an application.
...
The European Commission, the EU's principal administrative body, has contested the law and on Monday announced it had launched an infringement procedure against it.
The legislation would "undermine the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges," it said in a statement. The Polish government has one month to respond to the commission's Letter of Formal Notice, it said.
Nonetheless, the dispute has highlighted the limitations on what the EU can do to deal with member states that act contrary to the bloc....
... EU has clashed repeatedly with Morawiecki's government over judicial reforms that have broadened the government's power over the Supreme Court and national council of the judiciary, which appoints judges.
People demonstrate in support of the Supreme Court judges in front of the Supreme Court building in Warsaw on Tuesday evening.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Those Europeans are crazy. Making a young person retire at 65?
“I tend to think of judges as the scoundrels who hate President Trump the most and who are the most pernicious defenders of Corporatism and the entrenched “Never Trump” forces of a Deep State.”
Couldn’t have said it better, except for writing it in capital letters.
I say we put it to a vote, not theirs, Ours.
If I’m reading this correctly, this is an EU law, not Polish law.
Sounds like a good way to get rid of some older more conservative jurists so they can move more quickly toward their socialist utopia one-world government.
The lead sentence is a little misleading as written.
It is Polish law to which the European Union objects.
We don’t want this. Please understand that this is the EU forcing its will on a sovereign country. Its not Poland making the decision to retire over 64 year old judges, its basically someone from another country. Why Poland ever agreed to join in the fisrt place in weird. Any country that values its own freedom should not be in the EU.
Gersdorf doesn’t sound Polish.
Yogi Pirogi is the king of Parma Ohio!
If Brussels is in favor of the law then I’m against it.
I agree with your interpretation. If, during the first two years of Obama’s presidency, he had convinced Congress to force all Supremes over 65 to resign, think of his power to pack the court. It sounds like inter party squabbling in Poland where the Prime Minister wants to pack the Polish Court to reflect his philosophies while the President is not his ally. And the EU doesn’t like it.
GREAT!
Ex post facto.
ExitPol and Others?
Funny how judges who ignore the law and constitution assume that people will continue to pay attention to their rulings.
Speaking of Belgium, I was watching the World Cup game the other day, Belgium v. Japan, and noticed that Belgium actually had a black player with all four limbs...
What?
The entire concept of “judicial independence” relates entirely and exclusively to the political independence of judicial decisions. That concept has zip, zero, nada to with the manner of the selection and appointment of judges, which varies between different countries, nor the lenght of their terms, which also can vary.
This is 100% an additional case of the EU attemtpting to interefer in the domestic affairs of an EU member state, thinkint it, the EU, is protecting interests in that state that are more favorable towards the EU than is the elected government of that state.
In the background you will find political interests within the Polish state that are connected to EU-centric interests within the EU itself, and within some nations whose nationals have places within the EU executive and EU agencies and commissions - interests with antipathy toward the ruling government of Poland.
It all began a few years ago when the Leftists in Poland lost in landslide victory for the Conservatives in Poland. At the midnight hour (final months of their administration), anticipating their loss, the Leftists (many former Communists that merely changed their lable to “socialist”), legislated new administrative rules for the top court and added a bunch of new seats to the court, which they immediately filled just prior to their election loss.
The new government, once installed, immediately called the new top court seats as invalid and forced the new judges to resign. Then they legislated new administrative rules of their own for the court (mostly as to the timing of the selection of in what order cases are to be heard).
Having said nothing of the previous government packing the top court at the midnight hour, the EU folks began making all kinds of claims and threats against the new government for the actions it took to re-organize the judiciary. (all within the Polish constitution they are allowed to do by legislation).
In short, the entire thing is a far-left of center EU-centric rage against the elected government of Poland, because by their history and experience the people and the Conservative politicians in Poland know the Marxist ambitions of the EU as no different than their own Marxists, whom the EU loves.
The outgoing (Leftists EU-centric) previous government of Poland packed the court at in the final months of its administration, knowing they were going to lose the election.
The new Conservative government has been cleaning up the mess and chastised at every step by the EU, because the cleanup has not been favored by the Leftists in the EU or the local Polish Left that lost the election.
In spite of all the political objections, the EU knows, the Polish Left knows and the judges know that nothing that has been done is out-of-bounds from the constitution of Poland.
My goodness, yes, a mandatory retirement age (with procedures for requesting it not be invoked) might in some immediate sense fall on a political group whose past experience in government put a lot of their friends on the bench, but that consequence should not defeat the implementation of a good idea.
The Leftists are just upset with any direction the new Conservative government has been doing with respect to the judiciary, because they were counting on their Leftist holdovers in the judiciary to “resist” and obstruct measures the new Conservative government is putting through (like the Leftists in the judiciary have been tring to do to Trump).
“Sounds like a good way to get rid of some older more conservative jurists so they can move more quickly toward their socialist utopia one-world government.”
No, you have things backwards. The EU is objecting to a new Polish law being implemented by the Conservative government in Poland. I have another post on this thread (#38), which tries to explain a lot of the background to this.
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