After his visit to Warsaw, the Dutch Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker has expressed concerns regarding the rule of law in Poland. Polish Ministry of Justice has dismissed Dekker's statement as "a political manifesto embedded into the election campaign".
Sander Dekker visited Poland on the last week of August. In Warsaw, he paid a visit to the Supreme Court, where he spoke with Poland's Chief Justice Małgorzata Gersdorf about the state of the rule of law in Poland.
According to information published at the Dutch government's official website, the minister expressed his admiration and support for the work done by Małgorzata Gersdorf.
Sander Dekker also spoke with the Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro.
He is said to have informed the justice minister that he was seriously concerned with the situation in Poland and that "he will be watching the situation in Poland and he won't hesitate to take appropriate measures at the European level".
"I'm seriously concerned with the state of the rule of law in Poland. It would be better, if we'd agree as the European Union, to grant financial support to countries like Poland only if they respect the fundamental rule of law," Dekker wrote in a statement.
"Political manifesto"
In the opinion of the Polish Ministry of Justice, Dekker's statement "departs from the truth and is a political manifesto embedded into the election campaign, as well as violates good and common diplomatic standards regarding reliable informing about held meetings and talks".
The ministry wrote in a statement that "during the conversation with minister Ziobro, Sander Dekker expressed only general opinions". "He wasn't able to mention a single European norm that the binding Polish law would violate," the ministry said.
"Asked a number of times by the Polish side to provide examples of such regulations, he finally explained that he questions Polish legal system 'as a whole'. The minister (Ziobro) pointed out that in democratic Europe we must provide substantiation for our views regarding the law, characterised by a different level and standard that those we had seen in the times of real socialism," the statement reads.
It was also written that "Poland is an equal member of the European Union and, in a discussion regarding the justice system, it should not be treated worse than other member-states".
In this context, the ministry informed that minister Ziobro had reminded the Dutch minister that "the European Union was founded on the idea rejecting division into better and worse states".
"In its foundations, it also rejected dividing EU citizens into those holding more democratic rights, and others having fewer rights. It happened so because the citizens of the united Europe had drawn conclusions from painful history, when contempt for people and whole nations had led to the tragedy of war," the ministry wrote.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, rijksoverheid.nl
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: rijksoverheid.nl