Constitutional conflicts in the European Union: Court packing in Poland versus the United States.

• Authors: Sweeney Richard J.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Court packing greatly threatens democracy. This paper examines, compares and draws conclusions from two attempts: The PiS government is near to packing Polish courts; President Roosevelt tried but failed to pack the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937. In most democracies a head of government with a legislative majority and strong party control can pack courts, giving complete control. The United States escaped; Roosevelt lacked complete party control. Poland is unlucky; PiS is strongly controlled. Peaceful domestic protest is necessary, but Poland’s hope is from EU-level institutional pressure, supported by major democracies, to reverse packing and prevent further seizure of power.

Keywords

EN

Poland; constitutional law; constitutional court; constitutional rights; Supreme Court Compliance; judiciary; court packing; European Union; United States

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Poznaniu
• Journal: Economics and Business Review
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 4(18)
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 3-29

Dates

published

2018-11-14

Contributors

author

Sweeney Richard J.

• McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, U.S.A., Claremont Institute for Economic Policy Studies, Claremont Graduate University, U.S.A. and University West, Sweden

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18559/ebr.2018.4.1