The Judgment That Wasnt (But Which Nearly Brought Poland to a Standstill) Judgment of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal of 22 October 2020, K1/20

October of 2020 was just another month of rising concerns over the ever worsening Covid-19 statistics in Poland. Otherwise the times were unremarkable: Poland’s ruling powers ploughed on with demolishing the rule of law and persecuting courageous judges; they reshuffled their cabinet to appoint an openly homophobic minister; and continued to inundate Polish citizens with propaganda spewing from government-controlled television channels.1 But on 22 October 2020, something happened that made political observers, civic activists, and the people on the streets in Poland rub their eyes in disbelief. The Constitutional Tribunal (hereafter: the Tribunal), firmly controlled by the Law and Justice party and chaired by Mrs Julia Przyłębska, who was unlawfully appointed to the position of the President of the Tribunal (though properly elected, earlier, as a judge of the Tribunal), as part of a panel partly comprised of persons not legally appointed judges of the Tribunal, announced that provisions of the law allowing pregnancies to be terminated when there is a high probability of a severe or irreversible foetal impairment or when the foetus is diagnosed with an incurable and life-threatening disease – are unconstitutional.2 Hours later, the streets of cities and towns, large and small, all over Poland, teemed with tens of thousands and later hundreds of thousands of protesters loudly proclaiming their opposition – frequently using expletives so far unheard of in public spaces – to this assault on fundamental human rights paraded as a legitimate judicial act as part of the Tribunal’s constitutional review of legislation.3 The protest, initially aimed at the Tribunal’s pronouncement, quickly turned into a global protest against the Law and Justice party’s rule over Poland in general, at first triggering incredulity in government circles and then prompting a series of nervous reactions from them.