<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> 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.</p></abstract>

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.

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

Economics and Business Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Court packing greatly threatens democracy. This paper examines, compares and draws conclusions from two attempts: The PiS government is near to packing Polish...

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

Published Online: Nov 22, 2018

Page range: 3 - 29

Received: Aug 01, 2018

Accepted: Sep 24, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18559/ebr.2018.4.1

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

© 2018 Richard J. Sweeney, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

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

Published Online: Nov 22, 2018

Page range: 3 - 29

Received: Aug 01, 2018

Accepted: Sep 24, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18559/ebr.2018.4.1

KeywordsPoland, constitutional law, constitutional court, constitutional rights, Supreme Court Compliance, judiciary, court packing, European Union, United States

© 2018 Richard J. Sweeney, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

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