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With Republicans dominating the White House, Congress and state governments, its no surprise that dominating the judiciary is the next goal. Efforts to control that independent branch of government have prompted debate on an obscure Senate rule called the blue-slip process.

Billionaire industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch, among leaders of the effort, urged supporters at a recent private retreat to work against the rule. The 100-year-old rule keeps judicial nominees from moving forward in Senate confirmation if a home-state senator objects.

The slim Republican margin in the U.S. Senate 52-48 has party bigwigs concerned that if the practice isnt eliminated, Democrats will retain too much power to delay or derail President Donald Trumps federal court nominees.

The Kochs one-page document on the rule urged attendees, who included many important Republicans, to press the issue with the Senates GOP leadership and other Republican senators they know. Tell them not to allow needless delay tactics and obstruction of the process, the document read.

The stakes are high. Trump arrived in office with more than 100 vacancies to fill on the federal bench, partly because Senate Republicans blocked many of President Barack Obamas nominees.

Nine of the countrys 13 federal appeals courts currently have a majority of Democratic presidents nominees. Among the 179 appeals court seats there are 21 vacancies. Trump has announced nine nominees for those courts and 22 for 107 lower court openings.

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is pushing back. She says ending the practice would allow nominees to be hand-picked by right-wing groups, and accused the White House, the Koch brothers, and the conservative Judicial Crisis Network of falsely suggesting Democrats are trying to obstruct presidential nominees.

Democratic senators are considering nominees fairly, and many have long judicial records home-state senators must review carefully, Feinstein says. Scrutiny is most important when home-state senators were not consulted before nominees were chosen, she says, adding, and that goes for Democrats and Republicans.

Congressional rules that aim to keep the branches of government operating within the two-party system must be carefully preserved. If they work for both Democrats and Republicans, the party in the majority shouldnt opt to exercise their authority because it will come back to bite them.

Witness Democratic senators response to the Republican blockade of Obamas nominees in 2013. They changed the rules to allow simple-majority approval of judicial or executive branch nominations, enabling them to win swift victories for the presidents picks. That backfired when Democrats lost the majority and Republicans could approve Trumps Cabinet nominees with the lower, 51-vote threshold.

Americas federal court system is not perfect, but its not rigged, as Trump asserted. Efforts by billionaires to undermine judicial independence threaten our democracy.

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Maintaining an independent judiciary is critical for democracy - Manhattan Mercury (subscription)

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Update: On Monday morning, Polish President Andrzej Duda surprised virtually everyone by announcing he would veto the proposed legislation, a move likely in reaction to widespread mass protests against the ruling party's efforts to overhaul the judiciary.

The right-wing government in Poland is on a collision course with the European Union.

Over the weekend, a bill overhauling the countrys judiciary passed both chambers of the parliament. If it gets adopted, the ruling Law and Justice Party will be able to fill Poland's Supreme Court with its hand-picked allies. Critics warn it would be a profound step toward authoritarianism.

The measure has led to the biggest street protests since the populist conservative party came to power in 2015. Lech Walesa, the 73-year-old former president, joined demonstrators in the city of Gdansk, where he led landmark strikes in the 1980s that helped topple communism. He warned that the freedoms won by the anti-communist struggle are now under risk.

Our generation managed, in the most improbable situation, to lead Poland to freedom, he said to the crowd in the city'sSolidarity Square. You cannot let anyone interrupt this victory, especially you young people You must use all means to take back what we achieved for you.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council and a former Polish prime minister, described the legislation as anegation of European values and standards that would move us back in time and space backward and to the East. The East was less a geographic signifier than a marker for a different, darker era of Polish politics, when Warsaw was subject to the whims of Moscow and isolatedfrom Europe's liberal democracies.

A statement from the U.S. State Department urged the government to reconsider the bill, which it declared would undermine judicial independence and weaken the rule of law in Poland. Yet the White House seems to have sent a different message.

After all, it was in Warsaw earlier this monththat President Trump championed his vision of the West to a crowd of supporters bused in by the ruling party. Trump said nothing then about the importance of rule of law or the preservation of democratic institutions. Instead, he delivered a paean to blood-and-soil nationalism, anchored in antipathy to Islam and airy appeals to Christian values and the sacrifices of patriots.

Michal Kobosko, the director of the Atlantic Councils Warsaw Global Forum, told The Post that Trump's rhetoric clearly encouraged to move forward with their offensive against the courts.

In giving such a speech in such a place, Trump has confirmed Polands nationalist government in its isolationist and anti-democratic course,wrote Post columnist Anne Applebaum.

Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoed two out of three bills aimed at reforming Poland's judiciary July 24, after five days of protests, with tens of thousands of people on the streets. (Reuters)

That course has been charted by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Law and Justice Party's co-founder and boss and the de facto leader of Poland. Both the country's prime minister and president are seen as loyal accomplices to Kaczynski's agenda. Protesters were staking their hopes on the latter PresidentAndrzej Duda to veto the widely unpopular legislation, but he is expected to sign it into law aftera few amendments.

Its implications are staggering.Heres the crowning blow in ending judiciary independence in Poland, wrote Monika Nalepa of the University of Chicago.Since the Minister of Justice already simultaneously holds the position of Prosecutor General, the ruling majority may now choose both the prosecutor AND the judge in every single court case.

For Kaczynski and his allies, though, the takeover is part of their project to renationalize Poland. Kaczynskisees the judiciary as infested with crypto-communists and liberals subordinated to foreign forces. He peddles various conspiracy theories, including his belief that Tusk and his liberal colleagues hatcheda plot that led to a 2010 plane crash in which Kaczynski'stwin brother died.

When the incident came up during a parliamentary debate about the judicial reforms last week, Kaczynski exploded. Don't wipe your treacherous mugs with the name of my late brother, he saidto his liberal adversaries.You destroyed him, you murdered him!This sort of polarizingrhetoric has become the stock-in-trade of politicians in nearby Hungary or Turkey, where illiberal conservatives have also set about subverting and transforming democracies in their image.

Kaczynski'spopulist platform built on Catholic piety, anti-cosmopolitannationalismand generous cash handouts won his party the support of close to 40 percent of Polish voters, and he may seek to consolidate that position through elections later this year. The liberal opposition, meanwhile, is floundering, asDer Spiegel observed.

The bedrock of [the liberal] political platform has always been the E.U.," noted the German magazine. Its vision is basically that so long as Poland is a reliable European partner, aid from Brussels will ensure prosperity for all. The trouble is that few people believe in this vision in the remote east of the country, in villages and small towns.

The protests against the new judicial reforms may present a galvanizing moment for the opposition. Last year, the government was forced to back down from an abortion ban after mass protests hit the streets.

We will show that we refuse to live without freedom, said Radomir Szumelda, a 45-year-old liberal activist, to my colleague Isaac Stanley-Becker. Young people who didnt live under communism may not know what that was like, but they are also joining us, and together we are saying that we cant go back.

But they may not get much assistance from the European Union. Despite the scolding statements coming from various corners, real punitive measures can only be slapped on Warsaw by a unanimous vote within the bloc. Hungary's illiberal prime minister, Viktor Orban, has already made clear that he would veto such censure.

And, looking further west, it's unlikely the American president another politician at war with liberalism and convinced of judicial plots against his rule will lift a finger toprevent Warsaw's slide away from Europe.

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Poland's war on democracy was aided by Trump - Washington Post

Following protests by thousands of Poles and threats from the European Union, Polish President Andrzej Duda unexpectedly vetoed two laws that would have dealt a serious blow to Polands increasingly-fragile democracy.

On Monday, Duda announced he would veto two of the three controversial bills passed by the Polish parliament last week that would have significantly reduced the judiciarys independence and essentially made the Supreme Court irrelevant.

"As president I don't feel this law would strengthen a sense of justice," Duda said in a statement on national TV, according to the BBC. "These laws must be amended."

Criticized as attacks on Polands democratic system of checks and balances, the bills called for the immediate dismissal of the high courts current judges, except those who had been chosen by Duda. It also would have given the ruling party the power to control who sits on the National Judiciary Council, which nominates Supreme Court judges.

The one bill that Duda did not veto gives the justice minister the right to select and dismiss judges in lower courts, according to the BBC.

Dudas decision came as a bit of a surprise given his leadership of the party that submitted the bills in the first place the right-wing, EU-skeptic, and nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS). Since gaining control of the upper and lower parliamentary houses following the 2015 election, the party has worked to dismantle Polands checks and balances.

The presidents veto has at least temporarily put the brakes on the Law and Justice Partys efforts.

The two laws will now be sent back to the parliament to be rewritten. Even though the parliament has the power to override the presidents vetoes, it requires the agreement of 60 percent of lawmakers. The ruling Law and Justice Party only has a thin majority in parliament, and its unlikely that it could get enough support.

The presidents veto came just three weeks after President Donald Trump visited Warsaw, hailed the countrys democratic values, and praised it as a defender of the West. Critics questioned the wisdom of Trumps visit given the Polish governments increasingly anti-democratic practices, which include clamping down on state media and moving to restrict the right to democratic assembly.

It also comes as thousands of demonstrators protested against the governments attempt to control the Supreme Court and undermine the countrys democracy. After the bills were passed in the parliament early Saturday morning, there were mass protests in Warsaw, Polands capital, and more than 100 cities across the country, according to CNN.

The European Union, which Poland joined in 2004, also joined the opposition. It warned that the Polish government could be sanctioned and have its voting rights suspended if it passed the Supreme Court law.

Frans Timmermans, the European Commissions first vice president, said last week that the EU was very close to triggering Article 7, a never-before-used rule that allows the EU to suspend a member countrys voting rights. It was established to ensure that all EU countries respect the common values of the EU, according to Politico.

The US State Department also criticized the bills.

We urge all sides to ensure that any judicial reform does not violate Polands constitution or international legal obligations and respects the principles of judicial independence and separation of powers, the State Department said in a statement on Friday.

Protestors have celebrated the veto as a success, but they are now pushing for the president to also veto the third reform giving the justice minister control over the lower courts.

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Poland's president may have just saved its democracy for now - Vox

Albania's new president has been sworn in during an extraordinary session of parliament.

President Ilir Meta on Monday formally took the post after swearing that he would abide by the Constitution and the laws, respect citizens' rights and freedoms, defend the independence of Albania and serve the interests of the Albanian people.

"For the new president, Albania and democracy will always be the first," he said after taking the oath.

Meta, 48, has been parliament speaker and leader of the junior governing party, the Socialist Movement for Integration, or LSI. Elected by the parliament in April, he gave up the party post to his wife, Monika Kryemadhi.

Albania's president occupies a largely ceremonial role and is limited to two five-year terms.

Meta, an economist, started his political life in 1990 as part of a student protest movement that toppled the country's communist regime. He became the country's youngest prime minister at 30 and also has served as Albania's foreign, integration and economy, trade and energy ministers.

Meta founded the LSI party in 2004. In a few years, he turned it into a kingmaker in the volatile country's politics.

The LSI joined the center-right coalition that ruled Albania from 2009 to 2013. Then it was part of the governing alliance with the Socialists from 2013 to 2017. After the June election, the party is in the opposition.

Meta pledged to promote "the spirit of consensus and dialogue."

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Albania's new president is sworn in, vows to back democracy - ABC News

Demonstrators outside Istanbuls courthouse, where 17 journalists are on trial. Cumhuriyet is a symbol of fearless journalism and its staff should be honoured, not treated as criminals. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images

Putting journalists on trial for doing their job, for informing the public or conveying opinion, is never acceptable. Like the canary in the mine, journalists can serve as an early alert to the erosion of the rights of every citizen. Where media freedom is curtailed other freedoms invariably follow. This may be stating the obvious, especially to those of us who enjoy the liberty and protection of democracy. But it is not an uncontested truth.

Freedom of the press is restricted wherever governments claim its exercise might run counter to political imperatives or what they define as national security. Itis a freedom enshrined in UN texts, but it is far from universally recognised as a basic right. It might be tolerated, but only within boundaries subject to whim, in jeopardy whenever those in power feel their interests might be threatened.

Totalitarian regimes (think North Korea) make no claim to upholding media freedom they dont even bother. But semi-dictatorships do pay lip service, at least formally. Regimes that claim to be democracies, and hold elections, often also work methodically to undermine the fundamental tenets of government by the people and for the people; essential pillars, like freedom of information, are gradually dismantled. Turkey today provides a strong example of just this pattern of behaviour.

On Monday, 17 journalists and executives of the independent newspaper Cumhuriyet were put on trial in Istanbul for no other reason than having done their jobs: for writing articles, publishing pictures, using social media, or even just making phone calls. Cumhuriyet is a flagship media organisation, Turkeys oldest daily, founded in 1924 shortly after Ataturk took power. It is the same age as the Republic and it is deeply committed to its founding promise of pluralism, minority rights, peace with the Kurds and investigating corruption; and it has been a harsh critic of Turkeys slide to autocracy in recent years.

It includes some of the best known and respected names in Turkish media, such as the columnist Kadri Gursel, the editor-in-chief Murat Sabuncu, the cartoonist Musa Kart and the investigative reporter Ahmet Sik. On Monday they were all in court, charged with having links to various terrorist groups. They face prison sentences of up to 43 years. Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, wants to crush this newspaper, just as he is ruthlessly stamping out dissent everywhere that he suspects it exists. Since last years failed coup attempt, 160 journalists have been detained across Turkey, and more than 150 media outlets shut down. At the Hamburg G20 earlier this month, Mr Erdoan warned that journalists also committed crimes and needed to be punished. No evidence has been produced against these journalists to suggest terrorist connections. Cumhuriyet is a symbol of fearless journalism and its staff should be honoured, not treated as criminals.

Mr Erdoan may seem impervious to external pressure, but Europe could shout louder. As one of the defendants, Kadri Gursel, told the court on Monday: I am not here because I knowingly and willingly helped a terrorist organisation, but because Iam an independent, questioning and critical journalist. Its not too late for retreat, even as the country lurches ever more towards dictatorship: the journalists must be set free. The Guardian stands in solidarity withCumhuriyet.

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The Guardian view on Turkish press freedom: standing up for democracy - The Guardian