Poland’s rule-of-law conflict with the EU is coming to a head

WHEN POLAND’SEUeu(ECJ justice system went after Maciej Ferek, a regional-court judge in Krakow, it used a heavy hand. In late 2021 he was suspended, his pay was cut in half and the locks on the courtroom doors were changed to keep him out. His mistake had been to challenge the changes to the judiciary which Poland’s government has made over the past eight years. These have given politicians ultimate control over appointing and dismissing judges, muzzled those who dissent and stacked the Constitutional Tribunal with cronies.The European Union thinks Poland’s politicisation of its judiciary violates the rule of law, which is guaranteed in the ’s founding treaty. After years of dithering, the has begun to act, withholding €35bn ($37bn) in grants and loans from its pandemic relief fund until Poland rolls back some of its judicial changes. And the Poles are cracking. On February 8th Poland’s parliament passed a bill that ends sanctions against dissenting judges. It would shift the job of disciplining them from a politically appointed chamber in the Supreme Court, which the European Court of Justice ) condemned, to a less politicised arbiter, the Supreme Administrative Court.