Polish senate defies allies, protesters to pass court revamp

Bloomberg

Poland’s parliament defied international allies including the US and approved legislation that gives the ruling political party extensive control over the judiciary.
After clearing the lower house, the 100-seat upper chamber passed the bill early Saturday with 55 votes, defeating opposition attempts to delay it. The European Union has warned of possible sanctions and the US has expressed concern. A wave of demonstrations continued late Friday as opposition-backed protesters in about 100 Polish cities urged President Andrzej Duda to veto the legislation. The zloty plunged.
The battle over changes to the courts is becoming one of the biggest political standoffs in Poland since communism fell in 1989. Shut out of the legislative process, the opposition has been mobilizing supporters on the streets. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law & Justice party that’s been criticized by the EU for rolling back democratic norms, said he won’t back down. His party controls parliament and backed Duda for president.
“We see that the strategic orientation of Poland, which had been heading West so far, is being reversed,” said EU President Donald Tusk, the country’s prime minister from 2007 until 2014 when he led governments backed by the current opposition. The “logic of the overall changes in Poland implies a departure from the liberal model,” he said on the private television station TVN24.
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymanski said on Saturday the EU has no grounds for any sanctions, according to the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant. Duda, who is to meet Supreme Court President Malgorzata Gersdorf on Monday, has refused to meet with Tusk, who this week urged a discussion to prevent a “black scenario in which Poland is marginalized in the EU.”

Zloty Pain
The zloty ended the week down 1.5 percent against the euro, its largest weekly decline since November. That includes a 1.3 percent drop Friday, the second-worst performance among 24 emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
“An increase in market volatility due to growing political uncertainty is very likely in the coming days,” Jaroslaw Janecki, chief economist at Societe Generale SA in Warsaw, said in a note. Fitch Ratings said political “noise” could hurt the investment climate.
Law & Justice has rushed through its reform, which forces into immediate retirement all Supreme Court judges, with little or no debate and without consulting the judiciary. Parliament this month passed bills giving politicians control over lower courts and the National Judicial Council.