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Poland's top Supreme Court judge defies law forcing her removal
CNN ^ | Laura Smith-Spark, Judith Vonberg and Antonia Mortensen,

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 ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: europeonunion; poland; prexit
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To: BenLurkin

Those Europeans are crazy. Making a young person retire at 65?


21 posted on 07/04/2018 6:34:57 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Spiridon

“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.


22 posted on 07/04/2018 6:38:39 PM PDT by sergeantdave (Teach a man to fish and he'll steal your gear and sell it)
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To: sergeantdave

I say we put it to a vote, not theirs, Ours.


23 posted on 07/04/2018 6:49:37 PM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masss could be farts)
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To: BenLurkin

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.


24 posted on 07/04/2018 7:03:29 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: smokingfrog

The lead sentence is a little misleading as written.

It is Polish law to which the European Union objects.


25 posted on 07/04/2018 7:10:00 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: wastedyears

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.


26 posted on 07/04/2018 7:15:18 PM PDT by TonyM (UPS)
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To: BenLurkin

Gersdorf doesn’t sound Polish.


27 posted on 07/04/2018 7:26:58 PM PDT by map
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To: BenLurkin

Yogi Pirogi is the king of Parma Ohio!


28 posted on 07/04/2018 7:32:38 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra (Don't touch that thing! Don't let anybody touch that thing!I'm a doctor and I won't touch that thing)
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To: BenLurkin

If Brussels is in favor of the law then I’m against it.


29 posted on 07/04/2018 7:37:17 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (You Say "White Privilege"...I Say "Protestant Work Ethic")
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To: BenLurkin

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.


30 posted on 07/04/2018 8:43:01 PM PDT by caseinpoint (Don't get thickly involved in thin things.)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

Moon Over Parma

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV2NX1kabEg


31 posted on 07/04/2018 8:49:42 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

GREAT!


32 posted on 07/04/2018 9:30:54 PM PDT by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra (Don't touch that thing! Don't let anybody touch that thing!I'm a doctor and I won't touch that thing)
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To: BenLurkin

Ex post facto.


33 posted on 07/04/2018 10:39:47 PM PDT by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.")
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To: HiTech RedNeck

ExitPol and Others?


34 posted on 07/05/2018 4:37:32 AM PDT by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world.)
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To: Socon-Econ
Funny how judges who invent rights that nobody ever voted on, and appear in no written constitutional document, such as gay marriage, think they are protecting the rule of law.

Funny how judges who ignore the law and constitution assume that people will continue to pay attention to their rulings.

35 posted on 07/05/2018 5:11:32 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Go go Godzilla)
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To: BenLurkin

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...


36 posted on 07/05/2018 5:16:05 AM PDT by Mashood
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To: Mashood

What?


37 posted on 07/05/2018 6:01:48 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

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.


38 posted on 07/05/2018 6:33:56 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: caseinpoint

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).


39 posted on 07/05/2018 6:50:36 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: smokingfrog

“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.


40 posted on 07/05/2018 6:54:07 AM PDT by Wuli
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