Europe’s Democracy Lecture Is Getting Harder to Take: What Is Happening in Poland?

Europe has spent years presenting itself as the guardian of democracy, constitutional order and the rule of law. It has lectured governments across Africa, Asia and Latin America about the importance of independent institutions, legitimate elections and respect for constitutional limits. Yet the unfolding confrontation over Poland's Constitutional Tribunal raises a question that Europe cannot dismiss with another statement about democratic values: what happens when the institutions and political actors claiming to defend the rule of law become part of the constitutional crisis themselves?

On Friday, October 30, Polish President Karol Nawrocki cut short his journey to Senegal and returned to Warsaw after a confrontation escalated around the Constitutional Tribunal. Police were deployed on the tribunal's grounds following security concerns and protests. The tribunal's president, Bogdan Święczkowski, was reported suspended from his duties, while the court's own representatives rejected the move and described the events as an attempted coup. Prime Minister Donald Tusk defended decisive action as necessary to restore the rule of law after years of what his government describes as institutional abuses under the previous Law and Justice administration. The opposition, meanwhile, accused the government of attacking the constitutional order.

This is not a simple story of one side defending democracy while the other side attacks it. Poland's judicial crisis has been developing for years. During the previous Law and Justice government, changes to the judiciary and disputes over judicial appointments generated serious confrontations with the European Union. The European Commission and European courts raised concerns about judicial independence, while the current government has promised to reverse what it regards as the politicisation of the courts. But the fact that the previous administration may have damaged judicial independence does not automatically make every measure taken by its successors lawful. Restoring institutional independence cannot mean replacing one form of political control with another.

The central issue is whether the government is acting within the law, whether the tribunal's leadership is lawfully constituted, and whether the procedures for suspending or replacing judicial officials have been followed. Those questions require evidence, legal reasoning and independent adjudication. They cannot be settled by calling one side authoritarian or the other side a defender of democracy. Nor should the presence of police around a constitutional court be treated as proof of a coup without establishing what the officers were authorised to do, who requested their deployment and whether they entered the building or interfered with judicial proceedings. The available reporting indicates that police said they were on the tribunal's grounds and had not entered the building, while the court and opposition figures made much more serious allegations.

But there is a wider European question here. Why does the language of democracy become so politically selective? European institutions have been forceful when governments they oppose threaten judicial independence or democratic competition. They should be equally forceful when governments they support are accused of abusing state power. If the European Union expects other countries to accept its assessments of their democratic standards, it must be prepared to apply those standards consistently at home. The credibility of the rule of law depends on whether it constrains friends and opponents alike.

There is also a fundamental misunderstanding in some of the commentary about how the European Union itself is governed. Indeed, the European Commission is not elected through a continent-wide popular vote in the same way that members of the European Parliament are. But it is inaccurate to say that every EU representative is unelected. European citizens directly elect the European Parliament, which elects the Commission president following a nomination by the European Council. That arrangement does not make the EU immune from democratic criticism. It does, however, mean that the argument must be made accurately. The real questions concern the distance between European voters and EU decision-making, the concentration of executive influence, transparency, accountability and the limits of institutional power.

The same standard should apply to sanctions imposed by European authorities. If an individual is sanctioned for alleged conduct, the public should be able to understand the legal basis, the evidence, the duration and the available appeal mechanisms. Sanctions that affect a person's ability to travel, work, transact or participate in public life require meaningful procedural safeguards. A political system cannot claim to defend the rule of law while treating due process as an inconvenience when the person targeted is unpopular or politically inconvenient.

Donald Tusk, Karol Nawrocki, the European Commission and Poland's political opposition now have a responsibility to prevent this confrontation from becoming another permanent institutional wound. Tusk's government must demonstrate that its actions are lawful and proportionate. Nawrocki must use his office to defend constitutional procedure rather than simply advance the interests of his political allies. The tribunal must be able to explain the legal basis for its own decisions. And the European Commission must resist the temptation to judge the dispute according to which political camp it prefers.

The European Union is not automatically a dictatorship because its institutions are imperfect, nor is every conflict between a government and a court proof of a coup. But neither is the EU automatically democratic simply because it uses the language of democracy. Its authority rests on the credibility of its institutions and the consistency of its principles. If the rule of law is a universal standard, Poland must be judged by it. So must Brussels. And so must every government that claims to defend democracy while exercising power.