The Rule of the Courts

Courts and Rule of Law: Past, Present, and Future

And when they fail to achieve their goals on the first attempt, they repeat everything again, and again, and again, as many times as necessary to achieve their aims. Take, for example, the case of President Trump’s appointments of Supreme Court judges during his first term in the US, which are now having an impact again in his current second term. In Poland, a friend of mine, who was a judge in a high court and was forced to leave office due to a drastic and selective reduction in age limits, told me after Tusk’s victory in the last legislative elections that it would take at least a generation to rebuild a true judiciary after the interference of the previous populists (the PIS party). And now, with the victory of the far-right president, in a situation of (not very peaceful) coexistence between presidential and governmental power, I would even dare to say that “two generations will not be enough”. But “fate” also has its ironies, and sometimes “the spell backfires on the sorcerer.” Take the case of France, where Madame Marine Le Pen fell victim to the judicial reform she herself proposed (imposed?) to prevent anyone convicted (in the first instance) of corruption from running for re-election. She even wanted such a ban on re-election to be lifelong, but it was the other French political parties that rejected this proposal in Parliament. What a pity and what a shame for her...

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