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WARSAW — President Obama chided Poland’s new right-wing leaders on Friday over …
WARSAW — President Obama chided Poland’s
new right-wing leaders on Friday over moves that have effectively
hobbled the country’s top constitutional court, the chief check on the
government’s power, and urged them to do more to nurture democratic
values and institutions.
The
unusual public rebuke of a close American ally came after a private
meeting between Mr. Obama and Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, on the
opening day of the NATO summit meeting in Warsaw.
“I
expressed to President Duda our concerns over certain actions and the
impasse around Poland’s constitutional tribunal,” Mr. Obama said. “I
insisted that we are very respectful of Poland’s sovereignty and I
recognized that Parliament is working on legislation to take important
steps, but more needs to be done.”
The
issue erupted shortly after the new government of the Law and Justice
Party assumed power late last year. The Polish Parliament, dominated by
members of the governing party, passed a law changing the way the top
court was to function, making it almost impossible for it to overturn
new legislation. The government then refused to recognize the court’s
decision that the new law was unconstitutional.
Poland
had already come under fire over the issue. Last month, the European
Commission ruled that Poland had violated the European Union’s standards
regarding the rule of law, a move that might eventually result in
sanctions.
The Law and Justice Party rejected the criticism, but said it would take steps to address the bloc’s concerns.
For
several days this week, in sessions that sometimes ran into the wee
hours of the morning, the Polish Parliament pushed through a new law
governing the way the tribunal functions — hoping to have it passed in
advance of the NATO summit meeting.
The
new bill was drafted by the governing party. Opposition parties had
offered 44 amendments, but they were all rejected. On Thursday
afternoon, it passed the Sejm, the lower house of Parliament, but it
still must pass the Senate and be signed by Mr. Duda.
The
bill lowers the number of judges who must be present to hear cases, one
of the criticisms that had been leveled over the previous law, but adds
other provisions that critics say are intended to continue hobbling the
court.
The
tribunal would still be forced to hear cases in the order they were
received, taking away its power to fast-track issues of immediate
importance. Also, a new provision would allow any four judges on the
15-member panel to delay a ruling for months.
“President
Obama had to react this way,” said Radoslaw Markowski, a political
science professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences. “It’s not just the
United States, but also the whole world, that can see that the current
government is dismantling Poland’s constitutional order. Nobody can just
stand aside and say nothing.”
The
new bill “poses a serious threat to the rule of law,” Nils Muiznieks,
the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a
statement.
In
his comments Friday, Mr. Obama seemed to echo those concerns in calling
for further action by the government to resolve the constitutional
issue.
“As
your friends and ally, we’ve urged all parties to work together to
sustain Poland’s democratic institutions,” he said. “That’s what makes
us democracies, not just by the words written in constitutions or in the
fact that we vote in elections, but the institutions we depend on every
day, such as rule of law, independent judiciaries and a free press.”
Donald
Tusk, president of the European Council and a former Polish prime
minister under the center-right Civic Platform party, compared Poland’s
rightward drift to similar movements around the world that have
“different values and different strategic aims” from the liberal
democracies that have dominated the West in recent decades.
“Whoever
turns against America, harms Europe,” Mr. Tusk said. “Whoever attacks
the European Union, harms America. And whoever undermines the
foundations of liberal democracy harms one and the other.” 
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