WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Poland’s new conservative ruling party faced strong criticism Friday for rushing through legislation that allows it to stack the nation’s top court with its supporters.
The legislation, passed late Thursday, comes at the end of a politically eventful week in which the ruling Law and Justice party and President Andrzej Duda took decisive steps to strengthen their own power and weaken political rivals from the liberal Civic Platform party who had dominated Poland’s government for the past eight years.
“As of today, Poland is no longer a law-abiding democracy,” said Andrzej Zoll, a former head of the Constitutional Tribunal who protested the actions regarding the court.
After Duda swore in the government of Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on Monday, he pardoned a government minister who had been convicted of abuse of power, Mariusz Kaminski, before a court could rule on an appeal.
Then, Duda’s office issued a report saying furniture and art went missing from presidential buildings under the previous president. The report also listed last-minute steep wage raises and other bonuses for the previous political team and cases of what it called “unjustified spending.”