Poland and Hungary are threatening to veto the EU budget because they don& #39;t want to be forced to adhere to the "rule of law." If the EU caves in to the blackmail, the results may be dramatic. In Poland, the consequences of a politicized legal system are already with us... https://twitter.com/sikorskiradek/status/1331191449766010881">https://twitter.com/sikorskir...

A few weeks ago, police detained (and handcuffed) a prominent Polish lawyer, Roman Giertych. They searched his house - looking, he has said, not for documents to do with his "case", but for evidence he had been gathering about government corruption. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/world/europe/poland-lawyer-detain.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimesworld">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/1...

A few days later, however, a court refused to uphold the detention. The judge said he didn& #39;t see that a crime had been committed. An appeals court came to the same conclusion. Restrictions on Giertych - he had been suspended from the practice of law - and others were removed.

In response the national prosecutor has said: & #39;Courts will not stop us." In other words: *we are going to get him, one way or another. If this case falls apart, we& #39;ll find another one.* https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,26541768,swieczkowski-o-sprawie-giertycha-sady-nas-nie-powstrzymaja.html">https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,2...

Courts in Poland are still sufficiently independent to resist this pressure. But up to a tenth of Polish judges are already being disciplined, including for decisions the ruling party dislikes. Polish judges now have to be courageous to rule fairly in politically charged cases

Again: the leaders of the ruling party hate Giertych because he has directly linked them to corruption, more than once. He has also successfully represented opposition figures, including @donaldtusk and - full disclosure - @sikorskiradek