The EU’s basic treaty requires its members first and foremost to be democracies. Since Poland’s Law and Justice Party took power in 2015, the Polish ultra-nationalist leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has felt stymied by the independent judiciary. The new law requires judges to retire at 65, which effectively gives the governing party control of a majority of all judges. Hungary, in rendering democracy purely formalistic, could learn a trick or two from the GOP. But the “mainstream” Republican Party properly deserves most of the blame.

Source: Huffington Post January 01, 2018 01:07 UTC