{"id":11856,"date":"2018-07-27T06:32:38","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=11856"},"modified":"2018-07-27T06:32:38","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:32:38","slug":"thousands-protest-as-polish-president-signs-disputed-judicial-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/07\/27\/thousands-protest-as-polish-president-signs-disputed-judicial-reforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands protest as Polish president signs disputed judicial reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Thousands protest as Polish president signs disputed judicial reforms\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F7Rf13TNBPA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Video by\u00a0<a class=\"modeless\" title=\"Owen BARNELL\" href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/author\/owen-barnell\/\">Owen BARNELL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thousands of people staged protests across Poland on Thursday after President Andrzej Duda signed into law a measure effectively letting the government choose the next Supreme Court chief.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">The European Union, human rights groups and opposition parties in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/poland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Poland<\/a>\u00a0say the legislation and other changes pushed by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party undermine judicial independence and democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Crowds gathered outside the presidential palace in Warsaw chanting: &#8220;Shame.&#8221; Many held candles and pens, referring to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/tag\/andrzej-duda\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Duda<\/a>&#8216;s readiness to sign. They shouted: &#8220;Break the pen&#8221; and &#8220;You will go to prison.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">A Reuters witness said scuffles broke out with police after demonstrators wrote slogans on the pavement in front of the presidential palace and that pepper spray was used.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">&#8220;Someone in the crowd used gas against police officers,&#8221; said a spokesman for the Warsaw police, Sylwester Marczak. &#8220;Due to the threat, one of the policemen also used a hand-held gas device.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Protests took place in more than two dozen cities and towns across Poland.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">The PiS party has said an overhaul is needed to make the courts more efficient and eradicate the influence of Poland&#8217;s communist past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">&#8220;Without (judiciary) reforms, we cannot rebuild the Polish state so that it serves its citizens,&#8221; said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the eurosceptic party that combines left-leaning economics with nationalist politics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Earlier this month, 22 Supreme Court judges were forced into early retirement, but chief judge Malgorzata Gersdorf has refused to go, saying her constitutional term does not expire until 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">The latest amendment, which was adopted by the upper house of parliament earlier this week, is designed to make it easier to name the new Supreme Court head.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">Since PiS won power in 2015, dozens of judges have been effectively dismissed from the Constitutional Tribunal, the National Judiciary Council, which decides judicial appointments, and now the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">New appointments have used procedures that give parliament, where the PiS has a majority, greater say over the courts and the government more control over judges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-US\">The European Commission is running an unprecedented &#8220;rule-of-law investigation&#8221; that could lead to the suspension of Poland&#8217;s voting rights in the 28-member bloc. It has also opened several separate legal cases against Poland, the largest former communist EU state, including some over the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20180727-thousands-protest-poland-president-duda-signs-disputed-judicial-reforms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">france24.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Video by\u00a0Owen BARNELL Thousands of people staged protests across Poland on Thursday after President Andrzej Duda signed into law a measure effectively letting the government choose the next Supreme Court chief. The European Union, human <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2018\/07\/27\/thousands-protest-as-polish-president-signs-disputed-judicial-reforms\/\" title=\"Thousands protest as Polish president signs disputed judicial reforms\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":11863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[827,5306],"class_list":{"0":"post-11856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world","9":"tag-poland","10":"tag-supreme-court-chief","11":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11856"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11862,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11856\/revisions\/11862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}