Nearly a quarter of a million people took to the streets of Warsaw on Saturday, according to city authorities, protesting against a government they say is weakening Poland’s standing in Europe.
The march, reportedly the biggest since the fall of communism in 1989, comes amid speculation that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is planning to rewrite the constitution.
Saturday’s march was organised by the Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD) and leaders of Poland’s opposition parties, and was held on the 12th anniversary of the country’s accession to the EU.
They fear the PiS government could pull the plug on Poland’s membership because of legal scrutiny from Brussels of Warsaw’s far-reaching political and judicial reforms.
“We won’t allow a nightmare of authoritarian rule,” said Grzegorz Schetyna, head of the opposition Civic Platform (PO), ousted from power last October. As protesters waved Polish and EU flags, he added: “We won’t allow the violation of democracy, the violation of the rule of law, violation of the constitution.”
The protests were dismissed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, PiS leader and Poland’s de facto leader. He insists his government, in which he has no formal role, is acting within the law and that Poland faces “not a bit of risk to its democracy, civic freedoms and human rights”.
“Those protests show an inability to accept the result of elections,” said Mr Kacznyski in a chat with Facebook users on Saturday. “There’s a problem on the part of the political class and, more broadly, with the establishment in accepting the fundamental rule of democracy – that governments can change as a result of elections.”
He insisted Poland would remain an EU member “because we want to have an impact on the fate of Europe”.
Counter-demonstration
While Warsaw city hall – controlled by a PO mayor – put the number of protesters at up to 240,000, police spoke of 45,000. A counter-demonstration of government supporters attracted about 4,500 people, police said – around twice the number claimed by Warsaw authorities.
The latest street protest came days after Mr Kaczynski floated the idea of replacing Poland’s 1997 constitution with a new one. Six years ago his PiS party proposed a presidential system that would allow Poland’s head of state dissolve parliament without reason within six months of taking office.
Other proposals in the 2010 draft would allow the president refuse ministerial appointments and to rule by decree if parliament requested it.
The controversial constitutional draft disappeared from the PiS website shortly before last year’s general elections, in which the national conservative party won a parliamentary majority.
Along with PiS president Andrzej Duda, the government is locked in a stand-off with the third pillar of state, the constitutional tribunal.
Mr Duda has refused to swear in five judges appointed by the last government, two of whom were later found to have been appointed illegally. Rather than swear in the remaining three, Mr Duda appointed five replacements.
Rejected
When those appointments were in turn rejected by tribunal, the government halted publication of its judgments – a move attacked as illegal by opposition figures and criticised by the Council of Europe.
The European Commission has launched an investigation into Poland’s judicial reforms, its overhaul of state media and state surveillance laws. The crisis leaves Poland without a functioning system of checks and balances, in particular to assess the constitutionality of legislation passed by parliament.
