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Comment by throwJan22 | Hacker News Reader

Poland has an authoritarian govt now.

They started by sacking the supreme court and installing its own judges https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/new-polish-regi...

Last independent newspapers were bought by state owned Gas Station chain. https://www.dw.com/en/poland-state-run-oil-company-buys-lead...

The only independent new TV channel was going to get shut down but recently had a last minute veto. https://variety.com/2021/tv/global/discovery-poland-media-bi...

It defies EU who says member countries must have EU law supremacy https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/19/europe/eu-poland-rule-of-law-...

They regularly have parliamentary votes late at night when only the PiS party turns up.

They give a lot of money to the church who then praise the party during services.

Its not a real democracy any more.

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Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

OK willdo. I really gave up my account to avoid HN addiction but some times like over the winter break I can't help myself.

Don't forget that public television funded from taxes and mandatory fees is under full control of the goverment and didn't publish a single piece of information that critiques government for years now.

But that happens everywhere in the world where there’s public television. In Spain that even happens with private television since they’ve been giving them money as some sort of “pandemic relief”, making sure they never speak ill of the measures put in place. Public television shouldn’t exist in this day and age.

Public television lacks the same corporatist incentives of private media, their inability to meaningfully criticize the party that feeds them notwithstanding. I’d prefer a mix of public and private media to private media alone.

I’d rather have corporatism than progressivism, but that’s me.

Vile.

why?

Probably he or she conflates progressivism with inefficient, yet authorian marxist rule like in sowjet russia - and corporatism with efficient no-marxist but corporate authorian rule.

Wrong, there's not 1 public television

theres 1 + 17 + even municipal television channels.. all at the expense of taxpayers, to make the government look good or push some politically loaded content

This is so wrong and a huge misunderstanding.

If the state has such a stranglehold on the public channels then that is the underlying problem. It would have the same control over private media if it needed to.

Public media and/or limited state support for private news media is absolutely vital for a functioning democracy.

Playing the "x is good for democracy" card. If it's good for democracy, it's totally justified right?

And if someone claims X is good for democracy, he doesn't need to bring data because he's on the Good(TM) side, so he can skip that step, right?

Are you sure you are not erecting two strawmen there?

In a democracy, the public chooses their leaders. They do so based on the readily available information. If the only (or overwhelminly prevalent) sources of information have other agendas, such as serving the needs of their conglomerate owners or a totalitarian-aspiring government then that information will be of low quality and likely to further cement the power of those that control the media.

To counteract this, a way must be devised to ensure diligent journalistic types (of whom there is no shortage) have the means and security to do their proper diligence for the public.

Leaked emails indicate that government official ordered TV to create a smear campaign about one judge that just ruled aginst prime minister in a court case. And TV immediately complied.

I doubt it's the same in Spain.

Not everywhere, BBC would be a good counterexample.

Reading the wiki below in a comment below specifically about the court I see parallels in the US - which is scary.

Though lawful, Republicans ignored their own 'rules' and just refused to 'seat' nominee (by not holding a hearing despite having almost half a year of time left). To be fair can argue wouldnt be confirmed even if they held a vote, but then why didn't they allow that? They then flipped those rules again when it suited their agenda.

It's not totally the same, but reads similar to me.

IDK if it's more scary that I personally believe Dems should exercise the same power to balance it back out. Though that would probably just cause a loop of reciprocating action towards chaos unless Dems can fix issues like the electoral college, redistricting, or add new states to balance the power towards more representational Democracy. Not many other remedies I can think of though.

The court in the US has huge power and they are doing similar things as in Poland such as rolling back abortion rights, LGBTQ rights (I argue this in the recent private school funding ruling and I wouldn't be surprised if they use more 'religious discrimination' to legally allow discrimination against the groups these religions despise).

This goes to your point about power of religion.

I would also add power of media to spread flat out lies (worse, that they are smart enough to realize what they are doing) to further their agenda. While not government funded, the Republican admin and Republican elected basically dictate and actually organize the coverage. Crazy to me.

>>Though lawful, Republicans ... refused to 'seat' nominee...

[Party B] followed the rules. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to appoint a judge, and so no judge was appointed. [Party B] is under no obligation to assist [Party A].

>> They (Party B) then flipped those rules

[Party B] changed no rules. [Party B] had the votes to appoint a judge, and so a judge was appointed. [Party A] did not have sufficient votes to oppose it.

Republicans changed an actual written down rule - the 'nuclear option.' Republicans did not have the 60 votes needed. So they changed the rules.

Beyond that factually, like a lot of things in the US govt, rules can be institutional momentum and tradition instead of actual laws. For sure that's debatable use of the word rules but I think in practice for the last century a lot of these unwritten machinations of government moved along without politics getting in the way.

The Thurmond rule is an example of this specifically on SCOTUS confirmations.

Logically or legally right or wrong, Republicans didn't even allow an up or down vote. I think there was a small chance 5 Rs could have voted for Gorsuch maybe not. Obviously not 14 to break cloture.

Trump is the king of destroying the un-written guardrails which have protected the country.

* i was just looking at comments and realized I typed gorsuch when i meant to be talking about obama nominee Garland

Please don't hijack a discussion on foreign politics to drop your hot take about US politics.

Baseless fear mongering is not new but it does feel more common. The supreme court is not dramatically out of wack nor have they "rolled back abortion rights". They specifically rejected a particular emergency appeal because of issues with immediate harm.

Preventing state discrimination in charter school funds is not a rollback of lgtbq rights, which are stronger than they have ever been, nor are charter schools mandatory.

Media is not republican controlled and the vast, vast majority of media coverage in the US is liberal in leaning.

Please stop doomsaying.

Well you're right that the MS ruling is not totally final yet, they have currently banned abortion for ~ 14 million women, at least for the time being. And the MS ruling will likely - at a minimum - allow states to severely restrict or fully outlaw abortion in all but deadly cases.

I was watching the TVN vote when visiting my grandparents in poland, man was it scary. Really felt dystopian watching the news during it, but it was great how many protests supported TVN. I'm annoyed that I didn't find out about the one going on near me.

For those not aware, vote on „Lex TVN” was lost by the ruling party, but then parliament’s marshall (person responsive for maintaining order of proceedings) announced that voting process was invalid and ran another voting over the law which made it pass the parliament and go to senate.

And the rest of the countries are?Give me a break.If you're from Poland I find it funny if you're that surprised.But judging from the fact that you're probably not, and you post cnn/irishtimes sources for news about EE, you probably don't understand how things work around here.You're right about some things but being partially right or not seeing the entire picture doesn't mean much of anything.

Yes there's less distinction between the church and the state, that goes in almost every ex-eastern bloc country.Happens here in other countries aswell.Every country has it's shit hidden somewhere, in EE it just stinks more because we don't have money to spray some perfume. The Media is owned by politicians entirely and guess what: that still doesn't do much.You have western[to be read: foreign-imported] rhetoric everywhere, and that makes people still support these 'evil' politicians.So in retrospective you're kind of wrong, because democracy is exactly the thing that put in power the people you don't like.It's a Streisand effect mainly in response to foreign influence that keeps these corrupt politicians in power, because more often than not the alternative is a puppet who knows even less.[By the way is not an excuse for them being corrupt & scummy, i'm just giving a quick rundown to establish these things are not artificial]

Also if you want a free advice: you don't "beat" PiS or any other party that's well-established by crying out corruption, because that's just a lost cause.[You can look at the figure representing european justice right now -- who's from EE -- who correctly stated that there's no difference between EE/WE corruption]; You beat it by recognizing the policies you advocate them don't resonate with the people, and make compromises where necessary.

Very sympathetic to that and it's all disconcerting, but

1) the 'Supreme / Constitutional Court' issue is not nearly as 'one sided'. There were terrible shenanigans played by 'the other side' prior to their departure, which originated that crisis. While I have little faith in PiS, they had legitimate concerns as least to provide cover for some of their own actions.

and item 4) "It defies EU who says member countries must have EU law supremacy" - sorry to burst your bubble but that is reality. There is no treaty or law that gives ECJ 'Supremacy'. The ECJ in 1964 [1] made a ruling on their own jurisdiction and 'declared supremacy'. There is no legislative or treaty basis for quite the authority they assigned to themselves. Some local courts in the EU (i.e. France) have started to defer to the ruling, therefore legitimizing it, but it's still a 'Giant Problem' in the legal foundation of the EU. It was a big 'non populist' issue for Brexit, not really talked about in the media because regular citizens don't care but it was definitely an issue among the elites, and, it's still a contentious issue in Germany (and other places), where the Supremacy of ECJ is still not effectively recognized and it's a 'grey area'.

But yes, it's a serious problem overall, we can agree.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law

> There is no treaty or law that gives ECJ 'Supremacy'

Our former head of the Constitutional Court says otherwise, that through ratification of the EU Treaty of Lisbon we have accepted that ECJ decisions and EU law have primacy over national law.

Ask yourself the question:

If a bunch of nations are going to get into a kind of Federal Union, and have a 'court' of some kind, wouldn't it be extremely prudent to parameterize what exactly those authorities are?

If you were the PM/Pres or Supreme Court Judge of any country, wouldn't you think it would be the most obvious and important thing to make it very clear and spelled out in law and treaty?

If the framers of the EU actually wanted to hand over 'Judicial Supremacy' to the ECJ, would they, you know actually write that down?

And absence of it being clear, why on god's green earth would nations hand over a fundamental right, one of the pillars of Liberal Democracy, over to a different institution.

Any and all 'decisions' made otherwise, are hugely indirect and speculative i.e. "Well, we signed treaties with the EU after the ECJ declared Supremacy, therefore, they have Supremacy' is still very indirect.

It's one of the more mind-boggling aspects of EU governance, and if you start to take a slightly cynical look at it, it doesn't look good.

The most pragmatic reason for why the ECJ was never explicitly given power was because: it would be illegal, it would cause major uproar in nation states, it would never pass. So what they did was 'allowed' the ECJ to make a little ruling claiming authority, and then as generations go by, as local courts pile on the deferring agreements, it just 'becomes a reality'.

That's a big speculation of course, but there's just no logic at all for nations handing over Judicial authority without it being fairly clear.

If they were 'nitpicking' at 'some narrow issue' - then fine. There is always ambiguity. But this is not that, it's more fundamental.

It's truly bizarre.

And FYI this is not a resolved issue (See Germany: [1]) and there's still a lot going on.

Also worth a glance [2]

In terms of PiS shenanigans, nuance does matter, I don't think we can just be populist and say 'oh they rejected ECJ Supremacy which is ridiculous and evil' kind of thing. All of these issues are a bit tricky.

I think a lot of people in Europe just think that the ECJ naturally has Supremacy, just like a regular Supreme Court, because that's what was agreed to and Poland is 'off their rocker' - like a US State ignoring a US Supreme Curt ruling. It's not the case though. People would be very surprised at the odd reality.

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/commission-sues-germany-esca...

[2] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/10/law-tool-eu-integration...

I don't know about the woulds or would nots, I'm not an expert in constitutional law or international treaties. The former head of the CC is the former. I listen to what he has to say. It is what it is. What I can tell you is that the current situation suits me because there are mechanisms in place that make it considerably harder for local politicians to tighten their grip on power and turn my country into a dictatorship again. I will never support eurosceptic parties precisely because of what happened in Poland and Hungary, among other issues like Holocaust denial.

It's fine that it 'suits you' but that's not what it's about.

If there is no treaty validating ECJ Supremacy, then that's it. Even a 'statement' or 'interpretation' by an Judge or Expert will be called into question.

Also - you may despair in the short run for the authoritative nature of 'Hungary' but there is a much bigger issue and that is the consolidation of power at the EU level.

Hungary has elections for it's leaders.

The EU does not.

You did not vote for Ursula Von Der Leyen. She was not a candidate, and was totally unknown outside Germany before the election. She was not vetted. She had little public history. Voters did not select her.

She was chosen in a backroom deal: "Here is your new President. We selected her for you. You will find about her platform, later, we hope you like it because obviously you didn't vote for it". Ursula von der Layen layed out her vision for EU long after voters even knew who she was.

The EU Treaties only in 2007 even require the selection of the Pres. to even barely take into consideration the 'recommendation' of MEPs, even then, they have no power. MEPs cannot introduce legislation or sanction leaders.

The EU is the least democratic 'layer' of European governance, combined with the fact that it is at the 'top' and sometimes has the most authority, is a pretty scary thing in terms of the balance of power.

So the EU is 'good for dealing with PiS' yes, probably. But there are other, broader issue.

That's how the EU works. You vote for a political direction by choosing between EU party groups. The EUCO defines priorities and the political direction of the EU, not the head of the EC. The EPP which Von Der Leyen is part of won the most seats in the EP, David Maria Sassoli is part of the S&D which has the second most seats in the EP and Charles Michel is part of Renew which has the third most seats in the EP. The comissioners are also part of different other EP groups, yet they all work together. It's somehow similar to the UK where you don't vote for Boris Johnson, but for the Conservative Party. The difference is that the EU is almost always led by a coalition, not a single party.

In Russia people vote for the president, but that does not matter much - what matters is who owns the press and counts the votes. Which is exactly what PiS and Fidesz did: they owned the press. And PiS also messed withe the judges and quite openly admitted to having bough spyware which was used to spy on the opposition. That's the difference between the EU, Poland and Hungary.

These are all valid considerations, but I think you're overestimating the level of equivalent judicial the USSC has for example

> wouldn't it be extremely prudent to parameterize what exactly those authorities are?

TFEU

The ECJ decisions are actually more like recommendations on how the local courts should act.

Countries that don't follow the rulings can't complain if they're suspended from EU resources and mechanisms while that is not solved, like having their exports blocked, be removed from Schengen, etc. (And if they don't like it they're free to complain to the walls since they don't recognize the ECJ...)

That's not it though.

ECJ rulings are the law of the land as far as they see it, not a 'recommendation'.

There are no rules around sanctions etc. for countries that don't 'comply'.

It's just 'make it up as they go along'.

The problem is: there is no treaty basis for ECJ Supremacy. By opening that can of worms, the EU may find themselves with a 'big losing hand' and more affirmatively lose their power.

As I pointed out in the previous comments, the issue is unsettled even in Germany.

French themselves have never accepted it and have rulings about their law being superior since 90's. They should change their constitution but they won't.

1) However shinenigans you mention were executed in accordance with the law but PiS government violated the law staffing consitutional court, then retroactively changed the law to make what they did barely legal.

"However shinenigans you mention were executed in accordance with the law "

That's disputed, which is the point.

But it's clear they were politically motivated actions to stack the Supreme Court with an ultramajority of Judges of their own liking. Just as PiS did after the fact.

Opening that rabbit hole requires some nuance and objectivity, it's not nearly as one sided as it's presented in some media.

Good overwiew is here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Polish_Constitutional_C...

Using words like 'disputed' and talking about previous govenrment shinenigans being responsible in any way for the current state of affairs is true 'false equivalence'.

The previous government is definitely responsible for initiating illegal maneuvers leading to a constitutional crisis related to Judicial appointments.

That doesn't say anything about what the current government has done, or is doing, but contrary to your statement, it's irresponsible not to look at the Judicial crisis outside the context in which it was created, especially in the popular press.

>There were terrible shenanigans played by 'the other side' prior to their departure, which originated that crisis.

How that's related to legality of their own actions? Obvious solution was to reselect 2 judges who were selected illegally by previous parliament, but they willfully reselected all 5 including these chosen correctly previously. This itself was decided by court (K 34/15), but they just ignored that ruling.

Both-Sides-Ism is such a tiresome stance. Yes, PO fucked up on their way out but that in no way justifies PiS actions, not does it even explain them. They'd dismantle democracy with or without PO's unlawful judgment. It's dishonest to claim otherwise.

Why is this happening? What is the end game?

Pure unadulterated power. And all the benefits that come with it.

The same as it always is: more money for a handful of people, less for the rest.

I don't see anything here that other countries don't do and then cover it up and put on a democratic facade.

Could you give some examples of major democracies (except the US, that is in a bad place, and maybe Hungary) where the same is happening and what is happening in those countries?

And maybe UK, and maybe Austria, and maybe Australia? Check the work of Edward Snowden, see who shares data with the NSA.

Some specific examples?

The fact is, this is how democracy works. Most Poles currently prefer this government to a neoliberal cesspool.

False dichotomy?

An authoritarian government elected democratically is still authoritarian.

Calling it authoritarian is an opinion, which can be debated. The parent comment said the government was not democratic, which is false.

An authoritarian government elected democratically is still democratic. The whole point of democracy is that the people choose the government they want for themselves.

>Most Poles currently prefer this government to a neoliberal cesspool.

Not really. They just don't hate it enough to unite against it.

Let's say that there are parties X, Y and Z.

30% of the population votes for X, 30% for Y and 40% for Z.

Now, even if followers of X and Y hate Z more than each other, the winner is still Z.

Not in a parliamentary system like they have in the Netherlands.

Poland also has proportional representation. A 40% party will need to coalition with other parties if it wants to have enough votes to rule.

Except votes for parties who get less than 5% (if running alone) or 8% of votes (if a Coalition) do not count. So that 40% becomes 52% and suddenly the only thing you can do as a minority party is yell.

Rules like that aren't uncommon.

Netherlands is like the one exception that doesn't require parties to win >4-5% of the vote to get into parliament.

And all of these systems are more democratic than what the USA uses.

> 30% of the population votes for X, 30% for Y and 40% for Z.

> Now, even if followers of X and Y hate Z more than each other, the winner is still Z.

In this situation, Z would not win a runoff election though. In 2020 The PiS candidate won the presidential election[1]. I think saying that most Poles prefer the current government is imprecise but still truthful, therefore.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Polish_presidential_elect...

It's not "most Poles". It's realistically a quarter, maybe a third of the population. Thankfully, the turnout increased from 51% in 2015 (when they won the absolute majority for the first time with 38%) to 68% in the second presidential election vote in 2020 (when they also won, but with a pretty slim margin).

You'll never know what most citizens prefer if you prevent or encumber opposition candidates.

While this information is true, I am frustrated that the baseline for appropriate government is set by what happens in the west, or the status quo, or what makes Brussels give us pats on the back. It doesn't take a genius to see that this sort of norm for foreign policy always favours the incumbent.

So I propose that we don't ask why TK doesn't recognize EU law supremacy, but rather reflect that presence in EU means losing sovereignty. This is a consequential loss. The accession occurred without most people realizing this would happen. They believed in an economic union.

I also propose to question the implicit norm, that it's appropriate for an American media conglomerate to own the largest TV network in the country. Western countries are embattled on all fronts. Does it benefit us to have their media in control of our media? My intuition has always been that decision-making apparatus should be located close to the populations it affects. Otherwise it tends in the direction of imperialism.

I feel frustrated by the person who thinks things are going well when Brussels is giving us a pat on the back and thumbs up... ciepła woda w kranie, then it's all good. And who ignores that with the EU connections, we are silently ceding more and more of our sovereignty. In my view, these people are short-sighted and incautious.

PL may not be a real democracy anymore, but EU never was one. We don't elect the President of the European Comission, the head of the executive branch. Bureaucrats decide that. And their pick José Manuel Barroso went to Goldman Sachs shortly after leaving office...

I don't want a person like this at the head of the executive branch of the union with legal supremacy over my country. I much prefer Kaczor and an army of moherowych beretów. Przynajmniej swojskie.

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