Poland referred for its judicial reform, it is time for the European Union to think about even extreme sanctions

 The question of the independence of the Polish judiciary officially becomes a matter of dispute between Brussels and Warsaw; in fact, the European Commission has referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union, with the aim of protecting the independence of the judges of the Polish nation. The central argument of the dispute is the law that entered into force in Poland on February 14, 2020, which, according to the European Commission, appears to be incompatible with the primacy of EU law, because it affects the necessary independence of judges from the executive . A particular aggravating factor of the legal provision under discussion is also the prohibition, for judges to directly apply the provisions of European law, which precisely want to protect the independence of the judiciary, by activating disciplinary procedures against judges. provision is made for the prohibition on delegating preliminary decisions on the issues of the independence of the judiciary to the Luxembourg Court, in accordance with the provisions of the treaties also signed by Warsaw. If the appeal of the European Commission were to be accepted for the Polish government it would be the second sentence, after the modalities on the appointment of the judges of the Supreme Court of Poland were found to be contrary to European law. The justifications of the Warsaw executive concern the fact of having greater efficiency in the judicial system, also to eliminate the traces still present of the legislation prior to 1989, when the country was governed by the communist dictatorship. The excuse, however, appears inconsistent since the government in office appeals to the elimination of rules in force under a dictatorial regime, wanting to replace them with a law that does not respect the independence of the magistrates, a behavior, therefore similar to what one wants to fight . The independence of judges is a fundamental requirement of European law that Warsaw has voluntarily accepted and is not negotiable for Brussels. Even more serious is that the violation on the same subject is repeated for the second time and at such a short distance, given that the first sanction dates back only to last March 2. A new condemnation would further distance Poland and its reactionary government from the founding principles of the Union and would confirm, if needed, an accession of the Polish country due to the sole purpose of obtaining the economic advantages coming from the Union, which both weigh on the country's budget. The problem is well known: the countries of the Visegrad Pact do not yet seem to have accustomed themselves to Western ideals and are governed by right-wing executives who still exercise power with the communist ways and forms in force when they were under the influence of the Soviet Union. . In the institutions of the former socialist countries, in particular Poland and Hungary, there has not been an adequate maturation towards democratic respect for the exercise of government and the opposition; in practice, not only was that system of checks and balances not built, which must guarantee democratic confrontation, but, on the contrary, the direction was taken to destroy all those powers that can oppose a single governmental action, be it the judiciary, with its necessary independence, and the freedom of the press, increasingly compressed, with the consequent decrease in the guarantee of civil rights. The question is whether it can be tolerable to have as members of the European Union nations so far behind in their rights that entry and stay in Europe should instead have progressed and guaranteed. The presence of nation states that reject any obligation and application of norms that they themselves have freely signed and that too freely transgress no longer appears tolerable in a supranational forum that wants to aspire to achieve, sooner or later, a political union characterized by the guarantee of law . If these minimum rules are not accepted, access to the advantages that the Union guarantees is also not allowed and it is not enough to impose fines and not allow access to European budgets, because a repentance in the face of these threats is only an insincere repentance, which favors the repetition of the violation at the first available opportunity. It is necessary to have the courage to define these countries as unnecessary burdens to the process of European integration and, consequently, to have the courage to take drastic actions such as expulsion from the Union: at least, European funds will not be squandered unnecessarily in financing without any purpose.