The real winner in Poland’s constitutional battle is Putin

Political scientist (Warsaw University) and theologian (University of Nottingham). President of Reform & Solidarity Centre. Poland’s two main political camps are locked in an escalating fight for control of the Constitutional Tribunal, each claiming to defend the rule of law. In the process, they are undermining the legitimacy of the Polish state in the eyes of its own citizens, playing directly into Putin’s playbook. The roots of the dispute go back more than a decade. In 2015, the outgoing centre-right Civic Platform-controlled parliament attempted to appoint judges to the Constitutional Tribunal for vacancies that should have been left to the incoming parliament.