Authoritarism in Hungary and Poland

[Simon Tan]

Furriners are preferable to fellow citizens you disagree with. 

[DKTanker]

8 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Hungary, Poland or Canada?

No recourse?

 

Notice something about the upper redaction?  Rotate it 90d to the left.

[R011]

 

Shared Services Canada says it's a fake.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/memo-banning-anti-joe-biden-euphemism-lets-go-brandon-is-fake-shared-services-canada-says

This seems more plausible than reacting to a meme that Canadian public servants would have little reason to include in work correspondence.

 

 

[lucklucky]

Thanks.

For me what made me dubious was the lack of recourse and no labour union representation in last phrase. The Canadian establishment still wants to appear "democratic" in tone.

The story itself do not surprised me, Canadian public servants might just have been virtue playing to some woke boss they think could get promotion points by being preventively zealous.

[sunday]

Not a bad speech. There are English subtitles.

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by sunday

[BansheeOne]

Quote

Warsaw and Brussels wage no-win battle over rule of law

Despite tough talk, each side knows it needs the other.

BY DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, LILI BAYER AND MAÏA DE LA BAUME

October 19, 2021 8:57 pm

There’s a dirty not-so-secret truth about the EU’s fight with Poland over the rule of law that almost no one in the EU institutions wants to admit aloud: It’s unwinnable.

And perhaps the only thing that makes that bearable, especially for European Commission officials dealing with the issue, is a parallel truth: Poland can’t win either.

The legal remedies available to the Commission, including a new, yet-to-be-triggered enforcement mechanism that could restrict the disbursal of EU budget funds, are insufficient — limited, time-consuming, cumbersome, impossible to carry out, or all of the above. But the political reality is that the EU cannot afford to go to war with one of its own member countries without putting its entire agenda in danger of being blocked, given that all crucial policy decisions require unanimity.

For the Polish government, whose citizens overwhelmingly still support membership of the EU, there are inherent risks in becoming a pariah within the club. The country’s coronavirus recovery plan, including €23.9 billion in grants, is already being held up over the rule-of-law concerns. And so long as Poland defies the EU institutions, or is perceived to be doing so, it will face a blizzard of bureaucratic obstacles and entanglements, as well as a barrage of criticism, all of which are already causing domestic tumult.  

The maddening, bitter, and worsening feud between Brussels and Warsaw was on vivid display again Tuesday in the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg where Commission President Ursula von der Leyen squared off against Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to debate a recent ruling by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal — itself regarded as illegitimate by EU institutions and experts — that declared primacy for Poland’s constitution over the EU treaties.

[...] 

Hungary and Poland have challenged the legality of the rule-of-law mechanism, and as part of a political deal, EU leaders asked the Commission to hold off on triggering it, until there is a ruling from the Court of Justice of the EU. The ruling has not yet been issued, and it’s still unclear if it will come even this year.

For all these reasons, there’s a strong likelihood that the standoff will be resolved only if voters opt for a change in government. Hungary is due to hold a general election this spring. And in Poland, former Prime Minister and European Council President Donald Tusk has returned home to lead a new push by opposition forces against the ruling Law and Justice Party.

[...]

Some critics say the Commission simply refuses to muster the political will to hold Poland and other rebel capitals accountable.

For months, MEPs have been pushing for the Parliament to take legal action to force the Commission to trigger the mechanism. Opponents of such a move say a battle between the EU institutions would only undermine credibility and delight the bloc’s opponents in Warsaw.

While the main provision in the EU treaties for dealing with rule-of-law violations, known as Article 7, requires unanimity of all member countries, the new mechanism can be activated with the backing of just a qualified majority.

The mechanism, officially called “general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget,” allows for the bloc to suspend payments to member countries.

The process is far from quick: It could take between five and eight months from the time of the first formal written notification until a decision is made, and the Commission appears willing to drag out the timeline even further, by considering asking member countries for information before even issuing a formal notification.

[...] 

Critics of the Commission say that von der Leyen could have triggered the rule-of-law mechanism against Poland as soon as it was legally available, at the start of this year, and that if she had done so, budget funds might already be blocked — sending an unequivocal message to Warsaw and Polish citizens.

But, in his speech to Parliament on Tuesday, Morawiecki argued that EU officials and leaders of other EU nations are already trying to strongarm Poland.

“I reject the language of threats, hazing and coercion,” he said. “I do not agree to politicians blackmailing and threatening Poland. I do not agree [for] blackmail to become a method of conducting policy towards a member state. That’s not how democracies do things.”

But the problem seems precisely that the EU has no way to force Poland’s hand. The Article 7 process is blocked, not least because of a mutual-defense pact between Warsaw and Budapest. And as Morawiecki also said in his speech, Poland is not planning to follow the U.K.’s model and quit the EU.

“We are here, we belong here and we are not going anywhere,” he said.

The same could be said for the rule-of-law fight.

https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-european-union-rule-of-law-constitution/

[sunday]

Not like almost all European politicians, Poland's PM knows what is fighting against Totalitarianism. 

https://www.outono.net/elentir/2021/10/22/mateusz-morawiecki-the-brutal-torture-that-communists-did-him-and-he-did-not-surrender/

[Stuart Galbraith]

So the EU would rather Poland leave the EU, but it wont. And the EU would rather Britain not have left the EU, and it did.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the EU's foreign policy capacity I guess.

[BansheeOne]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

So the EU would rather Poland leave the EU, but it wont.

Where did you get that? If anything, that's probably the PiS' dilemma - they need EU money to buy off their electorate so they can keep railing against the EU. At least until, as Bojan pointed out, they are sufficiently in control that they don't need to keep their voters happy with public projects and welfare programs anymore. 

[bojan]

What do I  know, I have just seen it happen here. Through no one was bothered about that one, since he is Auntie Merkel's favorite dog.

Edited October 22, 2021 by bojan

[BansheeOne]

Which is another funny thing you can't easily explain to non-Europeans, or for that matter German right-wingers - that Orban critics here tend to see Merkel as an enabler rather than an antipode of his.

In truth it's just another function of her often-noted "keep the running system running" trait. Though that also made both wind up in opposite positions when it came to closing internal European borders during the refugee crisis - because Merkel feared the effect on EU cohesion, particularly abandoning Greece as the main point of entry - it was way overstyled, not least by the Orban fanbois who tried to paint him as the savior of the Christian occident who was being fought by da liberal EU system.

I'm sure raw partisan interest also made the German Christian Democrats somewhat of a braking block when it came to disowning Fidesz within their European party family, as the latter contributed to securing majorities within EU institutions. But a lot of people who made Merkel into a convenient satanic adversary to their authoritarian-trending idols will come to regret when she is gone with her "first, don't rock the boat" attitude. 

Edited October 22, 2021 by BansheeOne

[Rick]

On 10/22/2021 at 3:40 AM, sunday said:

Not like almost all European politicians, Poland's PM knows what is fighting against Totalitarianism. 

https://www.outono.net/elentir/2021/10/22/mateusz-morawiecki-the-brutal-torture-that-communists-did-him-and-he-did-not-surrender/

This is a man!

[Ssnake]

No doubt.

But he can still be wrong on the issue of checks and balances.

[Stuart Galbraith]

On 10/22/2021 at 11:05 AM, BansheeOne said:

Where did you get that? If anything, that's probably the PiS' dilemma - they need EU money to buy off their electorate so they can keep railing against the EU. At least until, as Bojan pointed out, they are sufficiently in control that they don't need to keep their voters happy with public projects and welfare programs anymore. 

Ah, they are British Tories. Now I get it.

 

[seahawk]

4 hours ago, Rick said:

This is a man!

One of the few remaining leaders in Europe, who still resists Communism and LBQT dominance.

[BansheeOne]

20 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Ah, they are British Tories. Now I get it.

Well, they sat in the same group in the European Parliament.

One complicating factor in the quarreling over rule of law is that while the aggregrate of reforms e. g. in the Polish judiciary is clearly to erode its independence (and ironically for a government which touts anti-communism to the point where they purged any senior officer who still was trained the Soviet way from the armed forces, the common populist mantra they're following that the judiciary must serve the will of the people is straight from the textbook of Real Socialism), the individual bits are generally all employed by some democratic western country or other. Recently they pointed out that the bodies selecting judges in Germany are much more dominated by politicians than the one they have been criticized for installing.

The Polish constitutional tribunal ruling parts of the European Treaties incompatible with Poland's constitution is also causing so much particular excitement because of the established background of mutual controversy. As the below article points out, other national top courts have questioned the constitutionality of actions by EU institutions before, and much of the clashes over national vs. Union rights are growing pains of a developing political system. The author in turn is linked to Hungary's Fidesz and ignores the systematic erosion of checks and balances which are the ultimate cause of the standoff - his "power, not values" would also apply to the Polish and Hungarian governments, or else are a false absolute - but he has a point on the details he choses to concentrate on.

Quote

Date 23.10.2021

Author Boris Kalnoky

Opinion: EU emphasizes power over values in row with Poland

A ruling by Poland's top court that the national constitution trumps EU law has sparked heated debate. But, in reality, this is about the distribution of power between the EU and its member states, Boris Kalnoky writes.

On October 7, Poland's Constitutional Court ruled that parts of the EU treaties are incompatible with the Polish constitution. The ruling triggered a heated debate in which little is really as it seems.

That includes, in particular, the alarm in Brussels and in most member states that the primacy of EU law over national constitutional law has "never before" been called into question. That is simply wrong.

On the contrary, the primacy of European law over national constitutional law has never been agreed upon. An attempt was made, but it failed. The draft of the "Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe" in 2004 included an article enshrining EU legal supremacy. The draft, however, was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands.

In a second attempt in 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon, which is very similar in content, was adopted. The most important point on which it differed from the failed "Constitution for Europe" was that it did not formally anchor the primacy of European law over national constitutions and legislation.

A politically explosive topic

This is probably an indication of how politically explosive this topic has always been. There has never been any consensus on EU law supremacy. The UK in particular, but also the German Constitutional Court, have always seen potential for conflict in it.

In May 2020, the German Constitutional Court ruled that the European Central Bank (ECB) had overstepped its mandate with bond purchases even though the European Court of Justice (ECJ) called the scheme compatible with EU law.

The Karlsruhe-based Constitutional Court called the ECJ ruling "incomprehensible." It thus challenged the supremacy of the EJC in this matter.

The EU judges have simply decided themselves that decisions of the European Court of Justice take precedence even over the constitutions of the member states. The driving force behind this was Robert Lecourt, a conservative French politician. He wrote a lot about the need for European law to take absolute precedence. In 1964, he was the rapporteur at the predecessor of the European Court of Justice in what was actually a non-political case, the Causa Costa vs. ENEL. He used this case, which involved the private concerns of an Italian investor, to construct the constitutionally legal supremacy of European law.

He succeeded in convincing the judges. In reality, however, he used a peripheral process to enforce a principle he found politically desirable.

Subsequently, there was little formal resistance to it. This was mainly because the principles were never used to upend the political systems of member states through European judicial decisions. It was mostly a matter of relatively non-political decisions. In recent years, this has changed, and opposition is growing. The European Court of Justice has become a factor in political power.

It's about power, not values

The debate is also about Poland's accusation that the EU is slowly taking on powers that are not laid down in any treaty. The establishment of the principle of EU legal supremacy over the constitutions of the member states is a prime example of this creeping expansion of power.

In reality, it is neither about valid laws, nor about "European values." It is about a power struggle. In an article for Politico, Stefan Auer and Nicole Scicluna have provided evidence for this.

"The EU is an evolving, experimental polity," they wrote, whose shape and future are being decided by the member nations that constitute it. The point is that Poland is as much a part of this as anyone else and the Polish move ultimately exposed a key weakness in the EU's legal construction.

[...]

https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-eu-emphasizes-power-over-values-in-row-with-poland/a-59600757

Meanwhile, Orban goes Maduro on the campaign trail.

Quote

Date 23.10.2021

Hungary: Orban accuses EU, US of meddling as election looms

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has accused Brussels and Washington of backing the opposition seeking to replace him after more than a decade in power.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who faces a parliamentary election in April next year, accused Brussels and Washington on Saturday of trying to meddle in Hungarian politics.

Orban told tens of thousands of his supporters at a rally in Budapest that Washington and Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros were trying to get the Hungarian leftist opposition elected using their money, media and networks.

"But what matters is not what they in Brussels, in Washington and in the media which is directed from abroad, want. It will be Hungarians deciding about their own fate," Orban said.

"Our strength is in our unity... we believe in the same values: family, nation, and a strong and independent Hungary," he said, calling on his supporters to defend his nationalist government.

Orban takes aim at EU institutions

The rally drew participants from across the country as well as from Romania, Italy and Poland.

Several Orban supporters at the rally were seen carrying Polish flags while one held a placard reading "Brussels = dictatorship."

Showing his support for Poland, Orban said the "EU speaks and behaves to us as and the Poles as if we were enemies."

Europe's "high dignitaries wanted to beat Hungarians into Europeans, liberals" and tell the citizens of Hungary, as well as Poland, how to live, he said.

[...]

Marki-Zay spearheads opposition

Meanwhile, some two kilometers away from Orban's rally, thousands of people gathered in support of the opposition.

For the first time since he rose to power in 2010, Orban will face a united front of opposition parties, including leftists, liberals and the formerly far-right, now center-right, Jobbik party in next year's race.

The six-party alliance is led by small-town mayor and Catholic conservative Peter Marki-Zay.

At the separate opposition rally, Marki-Zay said that if elected, his government would draft a new constitution, stamp out corruption, introduce the euro and guarantee freedom of the press.

"This regime has become morally untenable... the momentum we have now should take us to April 2022," he said.

https://www.dw.com/en/hungary-orban-accuses-eu-us-of-meddling-as-election-looms/a-59607853

[sunday]

I was looking for information about the Polish Constitutional Court, and found this:

Quote

(...)

The dirty game of the previous government to control the Constitutional

The current Polish judicial conflict did not arise with the current government of the conservative party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, PiS), but with the previous government of the Obywatelska Platform (Civic Platform, PO). The PO ruled in Poland for two consecutive terms between 2007 and 2015. Legislative elections were held in October 2015. All the surveys predicted the defeat of the PO and a victory of the PiS. And it happened that five TK magistrates ended their term in November and December of that year, after the elections. In a political maneuver that provoked a great controversy in the country, the PO wanted to replace those five judges before the elections. How to do it would have been manifest illegality, to carry out this maneuver the Sejm – dominated by the PO – approved a new law for the Constitutional Court in June 2015, just four months before the elections. Finally, the five new judges were elected in the last parliamentary session before the elections, on October 8, 2015. Curiously, at the political and media level was not a controversy like the current one, perhaps because the PO is affiliated with the European People’s Party and because the president of the EU was from December 2014 Donald Tusk, Polish and member of the PO.

The first and scandalous sentence of the new magistrates

The five new judges were: Roman Hauser (proposed by the PO), Andrzej Jakubecki (PO), Krzysztof Ślebzak (PO), Bronisław Sitek (proposed by the Peasant Party, also affiliated to the European People’s Party and allied with the PO) and Andrzej Sokala (proposed by SDL, Social Democrats). The PiS denounced these appointments as an illegal maneuver planned to block the legislative projects it included in its program. The first sentence of the new judges appointed before the elections consisted in taking the law of the TK of June of 2015 that had served to carry out his appointment. It was a great scandal, but the EU did not say anything about it: after all, I insist, the EU president was from the PO.

The Constitutional Court, presided by an old communist appointed by the PO

On 7 November, the TK annulled the nominations of the two candidates not proposed by the PO: Bronisław Sitek (proposed by the Peasant Party) and Andrzej Sokala (proposed by the Social Democrats). Following the election victory of PiS in October 2015, on 2 December 2015 Sejm proposed five appointments for the TK to replace those appointed by the previous legislature, considering that the PO and its allies had violated the law and therefore The appointments they had made were invalid. The five candidates were Lech Morawski, Henryk Cioch, Mariusz Muszyński, Julia Przyłębska and Piotr Pszczółkowski. On 1 December, the Justice and Human Rights Commission had given a favorable opinion of the five candidates. On December 3, President Andrzej Duda took oath of four of the five candidates.

On January 7, 2016 the TK, chaired by Andrzej Rzepliński (proposed for the post by the PO) overturned the five appointments made by the new Sejm. The TK, controlled by the PO magistrates put irregularly months before, considered that these appointments were not normative acts. However, five days later and in contradiction to himself, Rzepliński admitted two of the judges proposed by the Sejm: Julia Przyłębska and Piotr Pszczółkowski, replacing the vacancies left by Bronisław Sitek and Andrzej Sokala in November. Rzepliński’s case is common in the structures of the Polish judicial system inherited from the dictatorship: he was a member of the Communist Party, his family worked in the militia and political police of the dictatorship, and often exercised more as a politician than as a judge, to disqualify before the media the legislative projects of the PiS on which soon he has to issue sentence, something improper of a supposedly independent and impartial judge.

(...)

Quote

What happens in other European countries?

In the case of Spain, the election of the judges of the Constitutional Court depends on the vast majority of politicians, both the executive (2 magistrates) and the legislature (4 in Congress and 4 in the Senate). The General Council of the Judiciary can only elect two judges of the TC, but the CGPJ itself is politically mediated (8 of its 20 advisers are appointed on the proposal of the Congress and the Senate). Olivier Bault, a French journalist, commented in June last year: “Of course, Poland is no different in this matter from any other European country, such as France, where François Hollande recently appointed socialist Laurent Fabius to the presidency of the Council Constitutional. Some countries do not even have a constitutional court, such as the Netherlands, of which Frans Timmermans is a native.” Timmermans is the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for improving legislation, interinstitutional relations, the rule of law and the Charter Of Fundamental Rights, which is now being taken over by the Polish Constitutional Court. Will he have to act against its own country for lack of a Constitutional Court?

Looks like the European Commission consider some Constitutional Courts more equal than others.

[Rickard N]

I'm a little bit confused. It's not THAT long since these countries applied and was accepted to join the EU. If they don't like what the EU is doing, why join?

/R

[Stuart Galbraith]

22 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

I'm a little bit confused. It's not THAT long since these countries applied and was accepted to join the EU. If they don't like what the EU is doing, why join?

/R

Its not uncommon. Britain only joined the EEC in 1973, and I can recall by the early 1980's, everyone was already complaining about it. The left was complaining about it taking jobs (you can see a wonderful tirade about it in 'Threads'), the right complaining about the infringement of British Independence. It had already become a standard response to blame problems on EEC rules. I can recall a particular Episode of 'Yes Minister' where they were complaining about the EEC calling British sausages 'offal sausages', and Hacker decided to make a major international incident over it to deflect from domestic problems.

As my late father said, its the one compensation of Brexit. They will no longer be able to hide behind the EEC/EU and have to face up to problems they havent been solving. Or at least, that is the theory.

[Rickard N]

8 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Its not uncommon. Britain only joined the EEC in 1973, and I can recall by the early 1980's, everyone was already complaining about it. The left was complaining about it taking jobs (you can see a wonderful tirade about it in 'Threads'), the right complaining about the infringement of British Independence. It had already become a standard response to blame problems on EEC rules. I can recall a particular Episode of 'Yes Minister' where they were complaining about the EEC calling British sausages 'offal sausages', and Hacker decided to make a major international incident over it to deflect from domestic problems.

As my late father said, its the one compensation of Brexit. They will no longer be able to hide behind the EEC/EU and have to face up to problems they havent been solving. Or at least, that is the theory.

Sure, there's a fair bit of complaining going on in Sweden too, even if it hasn't come to UK standards and actually leaving. But if you join a federation with a set of rules, which aren't really a secret, and then complain about these being followed. I mean it's like sports people complaining about being penalized for not following the rule book.

/R

[sunday]

13 minutes ago, Rickard N said:

But if you join a federation with a set of rules, which aren't really a secret, and then complain about these being followed. I mean it's like sports people complaining about being penalized for not following the rule book.

I absolutely agree with that.

[urbanoid]

Well, not to defend PiS morons, as I loathe them (mostly for different reasons than 'authoritarianism'), but one could point out that it MIGHT be a problem when the rules are not the same for everyone. And not just for different states, but even in the same state, depending on which political party you represent.

There's no uproar when the country of the 'old EU' declares the primacy of their law over EU law in some cases, several countries already did that. There is one when the 'new' country does that, especially one with government not really appreciative of 'progressive' 'values'.

There was no uproar when the previous ruling party packed the constitutional court before the expected electoral loss, there is one when the current government does similar things. Either both things are wrong and unconstitutional or none of them is.

[sunday]

Exactly

[BansheeOne]

The affair over the Polish constitutional court is indeed a textbook case of political hypocrisy, by both domestic sides involved, and also for the warnings that if you play with the law to get your way, the other camp may use the change to their own advantage next time they're in power (see the American debate about the "nuclear option" in the Senate). The fact that the PiS dropped their constitutional complaint against the stacking provision as soon as they won the election because they wanted to use the precedent while the PO promptly sued against their own law tells you as much.

It's pretty clear that the latter infringed upon the right of the next Sejm to chose the two judges whose positions opened up at the start of their term. Filling the three opening after the election, but before the new Sejm convened had a smell of opportunism to it, but was legal on the face of it; the constitutional court itself eventually ruled along the above lines.

Of course by that point the new Seijm had already voted to fill all of the five positions with new candidates after various additional quick changes of laws and and procedures, aided by the PiS president refusing to swear in the earlier candidates, the new government refusing to publish the court's finding for it to take effect, etc. It's really a lesson on what may happen when partisan polarization meets insufficient formal or informal democratic safeguards, and makes you think about procedural loopholes in other countries which may be filled by precedent one way or other.

There was a long-standing convention in Germany that candidates for the Constitutional Court are proposed by both major parties in turn, so half of the judges rode on one of either camp's ticket regardless of election outcomes. That's not written down anywhere though, and in 2016 it was agreed that every fifth candidate would be proposed by the Greens, because they had gained more than a third of the votes in the Bundesrat, the assembly of the states, which fills every other slot by voting with a two-thirds majority.

But if a party gained sufficient majorities in both houses, there's really nothing to prevent them from filling positions coming up with whomever they like because "the judiciary must follow the will of the people" and open the way to eventual retaliation, politicizing the court. With the ongoing fragmentation of the party scene the train is of course actually rolling the opposite way, but it gives you pause.

 

[DB]

The UK's leaving position was in large part predicated on the massive change in "rules" that happened when the aims of the EEC were subsumed into the European Union, which wanted far more than a "Common Market" and instead pushed for political union.

Countries that joined the EU, rather than the EEC/Common Market have far less leverage to an argument along the lines of "rule changes made me do it"