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EU Steps Up Legal Case Against Poland over Supreme Court Changes


Protesters throw away pens in front of the Presidential Palace to show President Andrzej Duda their disapproval after he signed the latest legislation on the Supreme Court into law, in Warsaw, Poland, July 26, 2018.
Protesters throw away pens in front of the Presidential Palace to show President Andrzej Duda their disapproval after he signed the latest legislation on the Supreme Court into law, in Warsaw, Poland, July 26, 2018.

The European Commission on Tuesday stepped up its latest legal case against Poland, where the ruling nationalists stand accused of bulldozing the independence of courts and judges, thereby undercutting democracy.

Governed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, the EU's largest ex-communist state has most recently enacted laws forcing into early retirement many Supreme Court judges. The bloc, rights groups and domestic political opposition decry that as going against the rule of law.

These moves came after the PiS had already exchanged many judges at the Polish Constitutional Tribunal and heads of many regular courts, while also tightening its grip on public media and controls over non-government groups since coming to power in late 2015.

Now, the head of the Polish Supreme Court has been defying the new law and the situation risks paralyzing the court, which validates election results in the country of 38 million people.

“The Commission maintains that the Polish law is incompatible with EU law as it undermines the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges,” the EU's executive on Tuesday as it took to a second level a formal infringement procedure against Warsaw.

Poland now has a month to make amends or the Commission will file a lawsuit at the bloc's top European Court of Justice.

But the PiS remains defiant and enjoys broad public support — largely thanks to generous social spending — despite its many bitter feuds with the EU.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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