Poland's former president Lech Wałęsa joins protest against judicial overhaul
Source: The Guardian
Saturday 22 July 2017 17.58 BST
The former Polish president Lech Wałęsa has joined protests that have broken out across the country over plans by the populist ruling party to put the supreme court and the rest of the judicial system under its political control.
The EU and many international legal experts say the changes would mark a dramatic reversal for a country hailed as a model of democratic transition over the past quarter century, and would move Poland closer toward authoritarianism.
The president of the European council, Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, had on Thursday accused the ruling Law and Justice party of dragging the country back in time.
The party has defended the changes as reforms to a justice system that its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, said was never properly purged of former communists after that political system collapsed in 1989.
Wałęsa addressed protesters in Gdańsk, his home city and where he led strikes in the 1980s against the communist regime that eventually toppled the government and ushered in democracy.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/22/polish-senate-approves-bill-to-give-government-influence-over-courts
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