March in Warsaw (Poland): article from the President of the Portuguese Association of Judges, Manuel Ramos Soares

At request of the President of EAJ, kindly accepted by the author, below an English version of an article from the President of the Portuguese Association of Judges, Manuel Ramos Soares, published in a national newspaper “Público”.

This text is an adaptation and unofficial translation by the author of the article published in the Portuguese newspaper Público, the original of which can be read at the link:
https://www.publico.pt/2020/01/15/mundo/opiniao/dziekujemy-dziekujemy-dziekujemy-1900356

Article (in English):

This article may not be of interest for many people. Those who doubt that the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can cause a storm on the other side of the world should stop reading now. This is only for those who believe that seemingly insignificant actions can trigger uncontrollable events and produce chaotic results.

As we get older, we may think that the time for surprises was lost somewhere back in the past. Not quite. Last Saturday I had an emotional and unforgettable experience. I marched silently in the streets of Warsaw, with magistrates from all over Europe, along with thousands of Polish judges, prosecutors and lawyers, dressed in their professional robes, in defense of judicial independence and the rule of law. Standing outside the presidential palace, under a huge Polish flag, I heard thousands of voices repeating in unison, thrilled, the solemn oath to the constitution and to the values of freedom and democracy. At the end, in the square in front of the parliament, I heard the leaders of the Polish and European judicial associations state that independence is not for the judges themselves; it belongs to the people and it is for the people. The gathering crowd waved flags of Poland and European Union, clapped their hands and shouted repeatedly: dziękujemy, dziękujemy, dziękujemy (thank you). Many, many were crying. Even me, who like to think I’m tough, had to hide my tears along the march. An old woman approached us on crutches, walking slowly, to hand a small book to a Portuguese colleague, while saying things we couldn’t understand. Someone translated it to us: “It’s for you. For our president and government it is just a piece of paper but for us it is our constitution”.

The epic “1000 robes march”, organized in a week or so, just missed one detail: we were not a thousand but 25 thousand marching and asking respectfully: “listen to our silence”.

The full extent of the attack on judicial independence by the populist and authoritarian government of Poland is too big to fit in these lines. It is a “war” that has lasted for years, which has already led the Court of Justice of the European Union to rule that the ongoing judicial reforms in Poland do not ensure the independence of the judiciary and do not comply with European law. In its latest development, to annihilate the “rebel” judges once and for all, the Polish parliament, loyal to the government, has passed a law that gives the Disciplinary Chamber, newly created by a fully governmentalized National Council of the Judiciary, the power to punish and dismiss, without appeal, those who dare to act in accordance with the ruling of the European court and with EU law against national authoritarian legislative measures.

What was most emotional about that “1000 robes march” was the example of courage of the judges, endangering their professional life with stickers on their chests “we are not afraid”, and the civic culture and education of the thousands of simple, anonymous people who came out to say thank you, to cry for justice and to fight for such a hard-won democracy. Unforgettable.

This unprecedented act of union and solidarity of magistrates from all over Europe was prominent news in most major European media and even in the United States, Brazil, Africa and Asia. They didn’t see it only as a slight and insignificant flutter of butterfly wings in the distance.

European States are doing little, EU is doing little, we all, as European citizens, are doing little. The European project is not just about economy, free market and money. It is about freedom, human and social rights, democracy and peace. The end of the rule of law in any country of EU will represent the end of our common system of protection of human and social rights and the end of democracy, as we know it. If this happens – we can be sure of it – it will spread rapidly, like a virus in a diseased body. That is why the fight of the Polish judges is ours too; it is everyone’s fight.