Tag: European Union

“The problem of SLAPPs against journalists, activists, and human rights defenders must be addressed on the EU level. Legislative action is needed. The EU anti-SLAPP Directive and Council of Europe Recommendations are fundamental to raise awareness about SLAPPs dangers and to lead to a change ” – argue lawyers and researchers of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom

Fidesz’s media empire keeps pushing the message that the entire opposition and the mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karácsony are “rooting for coronavirus”, naming them as “the coalition of the death” – Edit Zgut on the media landscape and its prospects in Hungary

‘The declaration of the European Council was purely a face-saving document for domestic use in Poland and Hungary. There are 11 points on the rule of law issue. Not a single one of these points changed the rule of law legislation,’ says Petri Sarvamaa, Finnish MEP of the European People’s Party (EPP)

Sticking firmly to the adopted tactics and casting a veto to the EU budget and Recovery Fund would also imply Poland’s creeping departure from the Union, up to an implicit Polexit. That scenario is disapproved by over 80% of Polish citizens! Mr. Prime Minister! We call on the Government to change their position in this regard.

In its second report, the Civil Development Forum (FOR) evaluates measures used by the European Union, Council of Europe and other international actors to deal with the rule of law breakdown in Poland

In refusing extradition from Poland to the Netherlands, Judge Łubowski ruthlessly attacked the Dutch courts and government, including for obstructing the fight against international crime and the destruction of the community of EU law. He mentioned the threat of ‘horrific euthanasia’ and a ‘pathological narcotics policy’

We publish in full the speech made on 22 September 2020 by Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram and Michał Wawrykiewicz, attorneys-at-law representing judge Waldemar Żurek before the Court of Justice of the EU in C-487/19 case regarding the Supreme Court’s request for a preliminary ruling. 

“I appeal to you and members of the Polish Government to refrain from statements that are factually incorrect or diverge from legal fact when assessing the activities of the European Union,” writes Adam Bodnar, Poland’s Commissioner for Human Rights (CHR), in a letter to PM Mateusz Morawiecki

In June of this year, professor Laurent Pech of Middlesex University London and professor Dimitry Kochenov of University of Groningen issued a reflection paper on the current state of the rule of law in the European Union titled “Strengthening the Rule of Law Within the European Union: Diagnoses, Recommendations, and What to Avoid”.

On 19–21 September 2018, a delegation of the LIBE Committee of the European Parliament visited Warsaw to examine the rule of law in Poland. In follow-up to that mission, LIBE Coordinators held a public hearing with external experts and stakeholders during the Committee meeting of 20 November 2018 in Brussels. Adam Bodnar took part in the public hearing. He spoke about judicial reforms in Poland and the threats to the rule of law