We can no longer say that we were not warned. Or that we didn't know. On Thursday evening you could watch the shape of things to come on VPRO. Or, if you put it Biblically: the shadow of what is to come. Let me keep my spirits up: the shadow of what may come. What can happen when ambitious, right-wing conservative politicians believe they represent the 'will of the people', and then gradually do what they think the people will want.
The documentary Judges under pressure initially takes you aback, the situation in Poland seems so unreal, shortly after the election victory of Jaroslaw Kaczynski's PiS party (Law and Justice) in 2015. The consequences of the 'reforms' that he presented to the Polish voters. What it looks like when the “Polish house is cleaned up and mucked out.” The Minister of Justice, also from the PiS party, was chief prosecutor in the judiciary in a previous life and it is mainly his idea to put the ax to the judiciary of Poland. He calls it repairing the rule of law. War, that's what he calls it. War against the thieves and cheats among the judges and the “elite of lawyers.” They were no longer allowed to avoid punishment.
No judges are being shot in the head, they are not being taken from their beds and thrown into jail, not yet anyway. No, a constitutional tribunal is being set up, and the judges who sit there are appointed by the government. In addition, there will be 'disciplinary chambers' that track down judges who pass a 'wrong' verdict, a verdict that is politically unpalatable. Judges have immunity, it is stated in the Constitution. Difficult, the Polish justice minister thought, and lifted the immunity of judges by self-made law. He also had a good anecdotal reason for it. During his time as prosecutor, a married couple was arrested for theft at the supermarket. The woman was charged within 48 hours, but the man took a year and a half because he was a judge.
Scaremongering
The documentary shows one judge after another who is busy defending himself against vague complaints for which he or she has to appear before the judges of the disciplinary chamber. “Not a week goes by without a disciplinary case,” says the head of the Polish Association of Judges. It is scaremongering, intimidation, the fear of being fired in the event of an unwelcome verdict. But it does work. We only see the judges resisting. They continue to argue that the tribunal and disciplinary chambers are unconstitutional and that they are not accountable to so-called judges appointed by politicians. One of the judges draws on a fogged-up window of his train compartment what happened to the Trias Politica. Legislative, executive, judiciary. Three separate, independent pillars.
We see the judges remarkably often in a homely setting. Bare in front of the mirror, chopping wood, smoking (lots of) cigarettes, in their T-shirts with a laptop on their lap. This is undoubtedly to show that this is also about people. Judge Igor Tuleya had the nerve to call the justice minister's reforms unconstitutional in his courtroom. “Democracy was buried on that day.” So it was his turn. First he had to appear before the disciplinary chamber, then before the constitutional tribunal. His punishment: suspension as a judge and during that suspension he must forfeit 25 percent of his salary. The next day he was dressed at his kitchen table before the sun was up. “The tactic is that they come to the door at six o'clock. Then they know for sure that you are at home and in bed.”
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