People raise candles and hold a Polish flag during a protest in front of the Presidential Palace, in Warsaw, yesterday.
Warsaw: Poland’s Senate opened debate yesterday on a contentious draft law that would dismiss current Supreme Court judges and let the president appoint new ones.
Earlier, a special Senate commission swiftly reviewed and approved the bill, which critics say opens the door to political influence over the nation’s top court. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Warsaw and other cities late Thursday into Friday, demanding it be repealed.
Top judicial bodies in the neighboring Czech Republic took the unusual step of issuing a statement calling the latest steps by the Polish government “an unprecedented attack on judicial independence.”
The EU has also condemned the proposed law and the speed with which it was pushed through.
The changes to Poland’s legal system “represent an attack on the vary basis of the functioning of the democratic state,” said the statement signed by the heads of the Czech Constitutional, Supreme and Supreme Administrative courts, along with the nation’s Supreme Public Prosecutor.
The Polish Senate, which like the lower house is comfortably controlled by the ruling conservative Law and Justice party that drafted the bill, faced down opposition senators who demanded they explain why the commission rejected over 130 amendments they had proposed.
