Democracy is under threat in Poland, the European Union’s sixth-largest member state. Just two months after the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party won parliamentary elections and took over government, this is a view shared by more than half of the Polish people (56%).

On Monday, despite protests from the European commission and tens of thousands of Poles who have taken to the streets in recent weeks, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, signed into law a controversial bill undermining the ability of Poland’s judiciary to effectively maintain checks on parliament.

The bill requires Poland’s 15-member constitutional tribunal, which assesses the constitutionality of bills passed by parliament, to reach a two-thirds majority before it can block legislation, arbitrarily raising the threshold from a simple majority – while at the same time the PiS is trying to stack the tribunal with party loyalists.

The amendment also includes other curbs on the tribunal’s judicial oversight. Lech Wałęsa, leader of the pro-democracy Solidarity movement that ended communism in Poland, said the PiS was “acting against democracy” and “ridicules us in the world”.

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Mateusz Kijowski, head of the Committee for the Defence of Democracy (KOD), which organised the nationwide protests against the legislation, said its enactment signalled the “end of democracy in Poland”.

But for PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński, the constitutional tribunal is merely a “political organ” of the former ruling party, Civic Platform. It wants Poland to “continue being plundered by ex-communists and their buddies so it would have blocked our plans to give cash-handouts to parents as it doesn’t want ordinary Poles to get anything”. Hence the pre-emptive strike. Kaczyński holds no formal position in government but few in Poland doubt it is the veteran politician, in firm control of his party, who is issuing orders to Duda and the prime minister, Beata Szydło, both loyal proteges.

Kaczyński believes post-communist Poland was, at the onset, appropriated by cliques of unpatriotic and amoral cynics who sold the country to the highest bidder and placed their friends in key institutions to ensure the lion’s share of benefits from the country’s economic transformation were shared among a privileged elite. Wresting the state back from these unpatriotic forces, in Kaczyński’s view, will require revolutionary determination. “They [the constitutional tribunal] don’t want us to chase away the clique of cronies who’ve taken over the state, but you can count on us, we will prevail,” says Kaczyński.

For PiS, those taking part in street protests against the curbs on the tribunal are either frustrated at “losing their privileges” as Szydło claimed, or “don’t have brains which function properly” as Kaczyński observed. Rendering judicial oversight over parliament ineffective was just a warm-up though. Yesterday, PiS passed a bill enabling the treasury minister to directly appoint the heads of Poland’s state-owned TV and radio stations instead of the National Broadcasting Commission. That’s like George Osborne getting to decide who runs the BBC.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An anti-government demonstration in front of Jarosław Kaczyński’s home. Photograph: Wojtek Radwański/AFP/Getty Images

Ryszard Terlecki, head of PiS’s parliamentary club, was forthright about why his party wants direct control of public media. “If the media imagine that for the next few weeks they will be absorbing Poles’ attention with criticism of our changes or policies, then that has to be stopped,” he stated. PiS has also passed legislation enabling it to easily fire civil service officials and has introduced bills that would give the police and intelligence services increased surveillance powers on citizens – despite the fact Poland hardly faces any credible terrorist threat. Critics fear these will be used to monitor “unfriendly” journalists and NGOs.

Kaczyński once vowed to “bring Budapest to Warsaw”, expressing admiration for authoritarian Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán who favours “illiberal” democracy. Though he focused on bread-and-butter issues during the parliamentary campaign, once power was captured, Kaczyński wasted no time adopting Orbánesque tactics of removing any effective checks to his rule between now and the next elections. But the more PiS flouts the rules of democracy, the more reluctant its leaders will be to lose power for fear of the future prosecution that could await them. “Reforming” Poland’s electoral laws (as Orbán did in Hungary) in a way that would make it hard to unseat PiS from power could thus also be on the cards.

So what can be done? Only fierce resistance from Poles themselves, as well as intensified pressure from Brussels and Washington, could curb Kaczyński’s increasing appetite for total control. The EU allowed Orbán to get away with rubbishing liberal democracy in Hungary, a mistake that set a dangerous precedent. Why shouldn’t Kaczyński believe he can get away with it as well?

Europe must not let that happen. Poland is too big and important an EU member to be allowed stray into the “illiberal” democracy camp. Brussels and Washington have leverage over Warsaw. The EU remains popular among Poles, with 86% backing membership. Hardly surprising considering Poland is the largest recipient of EU development funds, used to build highways, roads and other infrastructure serving to modernise the country.

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Polish citizens see tangible benefits from EU membership and won’t tolerate those benefits being jeopardised by any government. Moreover, Poles, especially urban-dwellers, want Poland to be associated with that exclusive club dubbed “the west” with the connotation that brings of development and advanced societies. If key EU players speak out categorically against PiS’s undemocratic practises, emphasising this is not the way western democracies function, this will surely have an effect on Polish public opinion – something PiS must take account of.

Washington, meanwhile, has considerable leverage over PiS firstly because the party is generally very pro-American, and secondly because it considers the US the only viable guarantor of Polish security in the event of aggression from its feared neighbour, Russia. PiS’s foreign policy priority is securing a permanent Nato base in Poland. This won’t happen without strong support from Washington so Obama should use US influence to ensure Poland’s government does not continue wantonly flouting the rules of liberal democracy.

The message to PiS needs to be crystal clear. If Brussels and Washington stop at half-hearted protests against what PiS is doing, Kaczyński and his party will simply shrug them off and continue to dismantle liberal democracy in Poland one parliamentary bill at a time. The nation which produced the Solidarity movement does not deserve such a future. The people of Poland should not be abandoned in these trying times.