Thousands protest controversial Polish court reform

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Poland Thursday after lawmakers adopted a controversial reform of the Supreme Court despite the threat of unprecedented EU sanctions.

The rallies sprung up after the lower house of parliament, which is controlled by the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, voted 235 to 192 - with 23 abstentions - in favor of giving the government power to select candidates for the court.

The capital Warsaw alone saw up to 50,000 demonstrators, according to city authorities, rally in front of the presidential palace, waving Polish and EU flags and chanting "we'll defend democracy" and "free courts."

Under the current system, candidates for the Supreme Court are selected by an independent body consisting mainly of judges but also included a few politicians.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said on state television that her PiS party, which began making judiciary changes after coming to power in late 2015, is "reforming the courts so that they work well and fairly and serve all Poles.

"We won't bow to pressure. We won't let ourselves be intimidated by Polish and foreign defenders of the interests of the elite," she added.

But Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of the centrist opposition party Civic Platform (PO), denounced the Supreme Court reform as "a rampant coup", while his counterpart Ryszard Petru from the Modern party said "Today is a bad day for Polish democracy."

"The adoption of this reform violates the principles of the rule of law because it subjects the judiciary to political power. This paves the way for a non-democratic system in Poland," political analyst Stanislaw Mocek of the Polish Academy of Sciences told AFP.

"The situation is very...