People’s Court or Entrenched Elite? Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal

• In Event: Comparative Judicial Politics

Abstract

Populist movements have increased their influence across the globe. Claiming to champion the people, they have attacked judicial institutions as serving elites at the expense of ordinary citizens. One populist movement, the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland, has been particularly effective in employing these arguments to justify attacking and reforming the nation’s Constitutional Tribunal, the final arbiter on the constitutionality of domestic and international law, and on actions taken by state bodies. To understand the success of PiS in this effort, we investigate the extent to which the movement’s rhetoric concerning courts in Poland reflects reality. Employing the codebook of the High Courts Judicial Database, we examine the decisions of the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland to determine who wins and who loses in litigation. We also look at the characteristics of judges determining outcomes. The findings address vital questions about the legitimacy of PiS’s allegation that the court defends an entrenched elite, and have implications for the study of populist movements and our understanding of the role of courts in allocating values for society. Ultimately, the results inform current debates concerning the repercussions of populist movements for the promotion or destruction of the rule of law.

Authors

• Maureen Stobb, Georgia Southern University

• Jacek Lubecki, Georgia Southern University