Andrzej Duda, president (left) shaking hands with PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński | WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP/Getty Opinion Poland’s democracy is crumbling Acknowledging the gravity of the crisis means shattering the happy narrative of a Central European success story.

This week marks a stunning escalation in the battle over Poland’s Constitutional Court.

The ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) passed a sweeping amendment to the law regulating the Court. When signed by the president, this new law will force Poland to face a deeply uncomfortable new reality: Without international help, Poland’s democratic future may truly be in danger.

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Let us briefly recall how we got here.

In October, the outgoing parliament dominated by the liberal Civic Platform filled five upcoming vacancies in the Court. Three judges were elected for slots which opened in early November, before the start of the new parliamentary term. Two were chosen to succeed judges whose term would end in December.

The Constitutional Court reviewed the validity of these elections. In a December 3 decision, it held that the first three judges were elected properly but the two judges who would replace those whose term ended in December were not.

But the new, right-wing-dominated parliament did not wait for that decision. A night before the ruling it elected five new judges, whom President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, promptly swore in.

Duda refused to receive the oath from the three November judges, even after the Court made it absolutely clear that it was his constitutional duty. The chief judge, in turn, does not want to allow the replacement judges to hear cases. And the Court is not backing down either.

With just three more judges retiring in the near future, winning the battle over all five of these replacements is the only way PiS can secure the majority of eight judges in the Court before the end of the Parliament’s term.

This is where the newly enacted law comes in. Its primary goal is unambiguous: force the Court to accept all the five replacements by increasing the quorum required for the Court to decide the vast majority of cases.

Until now, most decisions have been made in panels of five judges. Even the most significant cases required only nine judges present. The new law provides for almost all cases to be heard by at least 13 judges.

The Court is given a choice: Validate the illegal appointees or be unable to hear any cases at all.

Why 13? The math here is straightforward. There are 10 uncontested judges, two presumably legal choices of the new Parliament to fill the December seats, and three clearly illegal replacements for the unsworn (but properly elected by the previous government) November judges.

Since the Court cannot allow in unsworn judges, the only way for it to reach 13 is to accept at least one illegal replacement of a November judge. In short, the Court is given a choice: Validate the illegal appointees or be unable to hear any cases at all.

Indeed, without accepting the illegal appointees, the Court will not even be able to challenge the increase in the quorum itself.

The law will go into effect immediately after publication — an unprecedented move in Polish constitutional tradition. Since every law is binding until the Court finds it unconstitutional, the decision on the amendment’s constitutionality will itself require the panel of at least 13 judges.

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To understand what is really at stake in Warsaw we need to juxtapose the “quorum trick” with other provisions of the PiS amendment. These additional measures seem custom-made to paralyze the Court.

Cases, for example, will need to wait in a docket for at least six months before they are decided (the chief judge will have an extremely limited power to cut this waiting time by half in exceptional circumstances). The cases need to be heard, with no exceptions, in the order in which they are received. Any law can be declared unconstitutional only by a two-third majority of judges.

The truly alarming question is why the government wants to paralyze the Court which, thanks to the quorum trick, will likely soon be dominated by the judges of the government’s own choosing.

There is only one logical explanation — one that was still unthinkable just a few weeks ago. The government may be planning to pass laws so blatantly unconstitutional that even the judges now appointed by PIS may hesitate to approve them. The additional, draconian constraints on the Court mean that even if such opposition emerges the Court will hardly be able to act.

The truly alarming question is why the government wants to paralyze the Court.

Let’s fast-forward to spring 2019. Imagine we’re five months and 29 days before the next general election, and the Parliament passes a sweeping reform of the electoral law that all but eliminates the ability of the opposition to compete.

Even the judges appointed by PiS find the law unacceptable, but what can they do? The Court must wait for six months, or after the election itself, before it hears the case.

The Court is also inundated with frivolous petitions from the government that, based on the order of receipt, must be heard first before turning to the matter of electoral law. And it takes only six judges (one third plus one) to block a decision holding the law unconstitutional.

Nobody is eager to confront the fact that the very future of Poland as a multi-party democracy is at risk and that the country will not be able to solve its current crisis internally.

PiS rightly recognizes Western criticism as the only real check to its power. That is why PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński openly called anyone who wants to involve Western institutions in national affairs a traitor.

Liberals have also been hesitant to internationalize the issue. Two weeks ago, the European Parliament tabled a discussion about Poland, not at the request of PiS but of the liberal Civic Platform. For people like former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, acknowledging the gravity of the crisis means shattering the happy narrative that Poland is a liberal success story — a narrative instrumental to Tusk’s election as President of the European Council.

And the truth is that it was precisely the liberal disregard, and sometimes open disdain of voters and their growing economic anxieties that set the ground for the anti-democratic direction we now see in Polish politics.

PiS rightly recognizes Western criticism as the only real check to its power.

The country’s lawyers are, likewise, in denial. Every day, they present exotic ideas for how the Court can outsmart the Parliament. The November judges should mail the president their oaths. The illegal judges should be dismissed based on the Court’s power to institute disciplinary proceedings (the newly enacted amendment closes this option by requiring Parliament to confirm any disciplinary dismissal). The Court should ignore the new law and decide based on the Constitution. Or it should use the Civil Procedure by analogy and issue an injunction preventing the publication of the law.

But these attempts at legal trickery are just a desperate attempt to push aside the truth: The constitutional system that Poland’s legal elite so proudly constructed is crumbling.

Warsaw’s Western partners are understandably unhappy to wake up from the comforting dream of Poland as a bright spot on the conflict-ridden European map. Leaders in Brussels, Berlin, and Washington need to consider the options at their disposal: Defending the independent Court now will be much easier than dealing with what may soon be in store — an endless series of confusing, minute legal measures all aimed at gradually pushing Poland towards authoritarianism.

Maciej Kisilowski is assistant professor of law and public management at Central European University in Budapest, Hungary.