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full screen Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer. Photo: Claudio Bresciani/TT
– Poland is one couple of decades ahead of Sweden in the fight against organized crime, said Minister of Justice Strömmer impressed and whistled yesterday off to Warsaw.
A nation where the democratic rule of law lies in ruins should therefore serve as inspiration.
Strömmer is accompanied by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who begins the visit with a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Many men make the mistake of bragging about themselves on the first date, but something tells me that Tusk did not go on endless tirades about his nation’s heroic efforts against gang crime, however knowledgeable the Swedish colleague might be.
More likely is that the prime minister mentioned hopelessly difficult his promise to the Polish people will be to fulfill, to rebuild an independent judiciary.
Perhaps he began his account by recounting one of the first decisions made by Law and Justice after winning the 2015 election.
The new parliament changed the composition of the Constitutional Court and put this previously independent authority under political control.
Since then, the judiciary has been in freefall and one more hair-raising law after another has been enacted.
In an interview with TT before the departure, Strömmer hoped to learn what the reporter calls “the Polish trick” in the nation’s successful work against organized crime.
– We have an interest in seeing and learning a lot about how they have gone about it, said the Minister of Justice and mentioned things that Poland introduced earlier than Sweden, for example anonymous witnesses.
Yes, probably have Poland, or rather Law and justice, had tricks of their own. In all humility, allow me to contribute a lesson.
For example, we have the illegal wiretapping of leading opposition politicians with the help of the Israeli spy program Pegasus, which was an important reason why the then government was re-elected in 2019.
A parliamentary commission has now been appointed to get to the bottom of how implicated various ministers were in that mess.
We also have the trick to replace previously independent judges with obedient lawyers who judge in accordance with the wishes of the leading politicians.
To emphasize the importance of judging justice, a Disciplinary Board was established at the Supreme Court while a law containing punishments for judges who challenged Law and Justice’s criminal justice reforms was enacted.
The European Court of Justice responded by imposing a fine of one million euros a day on Poland for as long as the tribunal is in use, but what good did it do.
This is just some of many horror examples. There are reasons why the EU has time and time again criticized Poland and withheld contributions in the billions to the country.
Kristersson was also to meet Polish President Andrzej Duda. It would be surprising if the latter mentions that he has pardoned the head of the anti-corruption agency, who was sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of power.
Strömmer spoke at the same time with his Polish counterpart, Adam Bodnar.
Perhaps Bodnar recalled what he said as Polish OJ in February 2020, in connection with the introduction of yet another law tightening control over the courts:
– Poland has today taken a big step towards legal withdrawal from the EU.
Possibly it told the Polish Minister of Justice that in 2018 he received a Norwegian award for his fight for the maintenance of basic human rights in his country.
He possibly mentioned his conflict with President Duda, who is demanding the release of two jailed former ministers.
As you can see, there was no shortage of topics to talk about. There are, moreover, very good pedagogical reasons for conducting them.
Law and justice is a sister party to the Sweden Democrats, who are part of the government foundation.
And there is no one secret that Åkesson and his party colleagues want to make Sweden the same kind of country as Poland was until recently.