Catherine Przyborska: Is human rights something that is only good in good times?
Maciej Nowicki: Human rights were invented for bad times and bad times. Their truly large career began in the 1970s with the conviction, or, in fact, the despair that communism in Central and east Europe is fundamentally unmoveable, that nothing can be done at political level. Human rights are the thought of powerless forces – this is their root, origin of strength and popularity.
So it might seem that these times should be conducive to them. Meanwhile, we're leaving them. Roman Gierty would like put the activists of the Last Generation in jail, neojudges are to bear collective work and the Sejm and the legislature have adopted a law suspending the right to asylum by a large majority.
I think that these times, full of uncertainty and fear, are conducive to human rights. Only that specified a human right – I will usage a Christian metaphor – with catacombs.
You mean against power?
Yes, driven by the primary energy of moral criticism of politics. Putting dignity against politics, putting boundaries on power. The most popular thinker in the humanities department in Europe is Giorgio Agamben, who described how the state of emergency allows the ruling to take human rights from another groups.
In our country, the removal of the right to asylum is motivated by security. Does not granting global protection truly increase our security?
To no extent, like another attempts to legalize pushbacks and buffer zone. By refusing to issue any document, by not even drawing up a note from an effort to cross the border, we ourselves are deprived of cognition of who crosses it and why.
And if there were truly mass and force trials of crossing the border, are there regulations that let soldiers to defend the Polish border?
Of course, if a 1000 people truly push the border with violence, they can be repelled by the current law. But it's not like individual with a machete is attacking a defender and saying, "I'm asking for asylum." There are no specified situations. On the another side are mostly civilians and what is needed is border guards and procedures.
I feel like we're giving up the most crucial achievements of civilization. After the Second planet War, this law allowed “dippies” – people without papers, without citizenship – to find a fresh community and survive. We are human beings and the community is crucial to survival.
And that's why the right to asylum is in a sense the most universal, basic – genetically related only to being human, not to citizenship and is taken from us first.
Not us. Migrants.
But the breach in the human rights strategy has been made. The power in Poland fundamentally and openly disregards the highest legal order. Global — Geneva — Regional — European and Polish — that is, the provisions Constitution.
There is besides a fight in Poland about whether after a short spring we will return to the increasingly authoritarian power of the Law and Justice. So possibly this situation justifies populist action? For the greater good?
If in the name of the defence of democracy, human rights and safety ruling becomes a tyrantThese values can't protect. I am convinced that the 2 ruling formations, and previously, and now, are utilizing anti-refugee politics as a populist tool to gain support. However, this action is completely unrelated to the real threat.
Are we gonna pay the fines?
Probably. Even if the full Union starts to become brown, even if the European Commission does not take any action, due to the fact that the EPP, to which the PO belongs, is ruled by the EPP, but we have Luxembourg, we have Strasbourg, there is no way that specified an explicit law would pass an examination before European justice.
The authority disregarded experts, lawyers, lawyers and legal advisers, the Ombudsman, the Ombudsman and its own legislative office. Women have inactive not regained their rights, although they have brought the current government to power. Pro-democracy, after the election they got a fig with poppy. Why?
My intuition is that it's a brutal fight for voters, for their comfort and influence.
It's a privilege.
Exactly. And this is simply a situation where people in the privileged group are afraid about losing them. And then there are very aggressive attitudes that do not have much to do with a rational assessment of who this privilege can take away.
So we're afraid of the incorrect people. We fear migrants, not power that is above the law.
One fact about populism is that it is easier to manage fear than emancipation. Power fears losing the support of already privileged groups who may not like the emancipation of others. The groups that emancipate are easier to present as a threat to the existing order of privileges. Equality makes privilege a law.
And she's losing her shine. And power loses its convenient tool. But as a consequence of arbitrary actions, does the government halt managing?
You can see that erstwhile we look at our polarized political scene. The 2 dominant parties change in power, but the exercise of this power does not lead to social problems. It takes them to keep the existing system.
Can we translate this as examples?
We have a large problem with the dimension of court proceedings. 1 of the answers to the question of why, for example, during erstwhile governments, the Platform failed to digitise justice, are frequently changes in the position of Minister of Justice. This action did not bring a solution, due to the fact that no of the ministers could think forward. In a situation where we are focused on a short-term goal, in addition to being unrelated to social goods, only to the maintenance of power, we are incapable to accomplish what could give a qualitative change. If in mediocre political systems this change occurs, it is as a consequence of another factors alternatively than the effect of consistent policies.
Is it a way of exercising power, replacing politics with a spectacle, or vice versa?
The protection of human rights requires solutions, operating systems and real dialog – not a performance. Now, for example, expert organisations have regained comparatively wide access to institutions of power, but this inactive translates poorly into a real dialog – they are frequently treated like a flower to a goat. For example, they were invited to consult on the extension of the buffer region at the border. The problem is that the information came on Friday night, and the consultation deadline was Monday. So it's pure appearance. At the same time, the power talks about restoring the regulation of law, which requires, among another things, reliable legislative processes.
The process of depoliticising judges is stuck and seems to be inconclusive. Will there be a real public consultation in this case, or just an apparent consultation?
So far, there's no evidence of a consultation. A year and a half after the elections, however, we inactive have the same problem and fundamentally the same proposals. The main project, most powerfully promoted by members of the Codification Commission, is actually the Iustitia Association project.
Is that the 1 who assumes to take all judges in bulk back to their erstwhile positions and tell them to go through the contests again? This assumes collective work and judges are besides citizens and have the right to consider their case individually.
Only those who have come from outside the judicial profession are to be expelled by profession. And those who have advanced, but have already been judges, are to go back to their erstwhile post, to the lower-level courts. They will rule, though they will not pass any verification. Where are the citizens' rights to an independent court? Will this justice who was politicized cease to be politicized erstwhile he returns from the court of appeal to the district? If their position and convictions can be challenged now, why not in a lower position in another court?
The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights believes that any neo-judge appointed by the politicised KRS must be considered separately. This is simply a time-consuming solution, but in line with human rights. But will he solve the problem?
This solution does not exclude the grouping of judges in the verification processes, as recommended by the Venice Commission, does not exclude different mechanisms for speeding up the full process. Let me draw more general attention, apart from the dispute over recovery scenarios. It seems crucial to me to separate the process of accounting for all kinds of evil from building truly independent institutions, including the judiciary. These are 2 different things, though related. At the moment, in the communicative of power and experts, the issue of responsibility, including the work of fresh judges, is completely mixed with the issue of the plan of systemic rules aimed at an independent judiciary.
The public is thus given the message: erstwhile the neojudges are demoted, the regulation of law will be restored. But punishment is not consistent with restoring order. That's another blow job.
Yeah. Meanwhile, citizens' rights to court in this case will proceed to be violated, due to the fact that the judges will not be verified politicised and disbarred. Secondly, citizens are besides neojudges, they besides have a right to court and it cannot be purely formal.
Thirdly, if this solution proposed by Austria passes, we are in danger of tremendous chaos. We have been saying for a long time that we should start by preparing a human resources map so that we can foretell how circumstantial solutions will affect the human resources situation in individual courts and departments. In the meantime, both Commission proposals were developed without specified a map, dry.
Is there a fourth?
We already have a dramatic environmental breakdown. And in all concepts, most of those judges who are referred to as neojudges stay in the system. There are no conditions for any dialog between “old” and “new” judges, no 1 has explored how a healthy working environment in courts could be built.
Such chaos can order reasoning with polarization categories: the PiS had its judges, PO its own. Without human rights, and 1 of them is the right to an independent court, the institutions' actions become a simulation.
That's right. Since you decide on behalf of the Polish Republic and these rulings are respected in the vast majority, the legislator cannot state by law whether you are or not a judge, due to the fact that the second actually means filing for office. This can only be done by the court, says the Polish Constitution. So what is the protection of the independency of the judiciary if we degrade the full group of judges by decision of the legislature, which is simply a political decision? The Venice Commission said explicitly: this is not within the concept of the regulation of law.
So this pushover that's been going on for a year is expected to find who's in power?
I am afraid that this will be read by a society that does not realize hard legal issues. This is simply a blow to the prestige of the judiciary, without which the regulation of law will not function.
The Neo-Soviets are besides a number against which, in addition, compassion is limited. As with migrants, or the Last Generation, violating their rights won't bring people out on the streets.
Modern democracy is simply a democracy limited by human rights. If we are lowering the level of protection of human rights, of minorities, we are returning to this democracy, which made Socrates drink the hemlock. The strategy of interdependencies between democracy and human rights is complex, but, among another things, it allows for a level playing field. Without this interdependence there will be no freedom of expression, no expression, no even political expression – without human rights there will be no constitutional, liberal democracy.
As the case law of the TEU or the interior political agenda of the European Union follows, it is clear that after the crisis of the regulation of law and after the human rights crisis we have already reached a crisis of democracy in Europe – we are already dealing with it. So we have a three-crisis.
The territory Court for Warsaw Prague South stated that ten-day detention would be appropriate punishment for a peaceful protest for a nineteen-year-old climate activist from the Last Generation.
It is defended by counsel Marcin Wolny of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and of course there will be an appeal. The court should weigh values, including the right to peaceful gatherings, in which interference must be proportionate. And we don't think it is. Fresh Liberty report shows that, throughout Europe, gathering rights are most frequently violated against climate activists.
Then let's get back to the catacombs. To realize what is at the core of a modern state? Why is the democratic state stronger than the authoritarian state anyway?
Without human rights, we will be subjects, not citizens.
