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03:49have seen is that on Friday
03:53newly elected judges entered the Constitutional Court and Judge Anna Korvin-Piotrowska ordered the suspension of two judges, the president
04:07and the vice president of the Constitutional Court who were appointed by the Law and Justice Party.
04:42So, uh...
04:43to the rulings of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights according to what Venice
04:51Commission confirmed just two weeks ago and according to the interim measure which was issued on the 5th of May
04:58this year, allowing these judges to enter the Constitutional Court. They were blocked by the president and the vice president
05:05of the court. And that's why Judge Anna Korvin-Piotrowska decided to suspend these two judges.
05:13The president and the vice president and the vice president of the court. And that is what happened on Friday.
05:18And later on in the night, what we have seen was the brutal assault of the president of the Republic
05:25who entered, using force, entered the building of the Constitutional Court and using the force almost damaged the judges standing
05:37in front of the court.
05:38So, this is what we have seen. So, this is what we have seen. That was the brutal assault of
05:42the president of the Republic on the independence of the Constitutional Court.
05:46So, the European Commission says the same, the Parliament, has the constitutional power to appoint judges to the Constitutional Tribunal.
05:54Does that settle the argument?
05:57Yes, definitely. The only competent authority in Poland to appoint judges of the Constitutional Court is the Parliament, the lower
06:07chamber of the Parliament in Poland.
06:09The president does not have any competences to appoint judges. That's why the only right is on the side of
06:18the Parliament and the government and the judges who were elected properly by the Parliament.
06:23And so, we are facing the enforcement of law, the restoring of the rule of law and independence of this
06:31most important Constitutional Court in Poland.
06:35And what is the concrete way out of this crisis now? And what would it take to secure some sort
06:41of cross-party recognition of the tribunal?
06:44Well, the consistency of all of the actions in the next days, in the future. Tomorrow, there is an assembly,
06:53general assembly of all judges of the Constitutional Court,
06:56and they will decide upon the future of the Constitutional Court. This is the only competent body in the Constitutional
07:04Court to decide about the future of the Constitutional Court,
07:10of the judges and of the suspended president and vice president of the court.
07:16If Tusk and Nawrotsky refuse to back down, who actually has the power to stop this crisis?
07:24Well, this crisis, as I said, started back in 2015.
07:29And this year, President Nawrotsky, who is trying to block all of the restoration of the rule of law,
07:36all of the implementation of the rulings of the European courts, which is the most important,
07:41because these rulings are drawing the roadmap how to get out of the crisis.
07:49But President Nawrotsky needs and wants to keep the power of his political camp over the Constitutional Court.
07:58So this is the fault of President Nawrotsky and his camp, that they don't want to restore the rule of
08:05law.
08:05They want to keep the political power over the Constitutional Court.
08:09That was the politically manipulated theater of puppets for 10 years, and they want to keep it.
08:17This is quite an extraordinary crisis.
08:20I can't remember anything like it in any other EU country.
08:24Are you worried that this story sort of harms the international, the European reputation of Poland?
08:32Our European friends deeply understand the situation in Poland, because they are facing this situation for many years.
08:42And this situation, and also in other parts of the judiciary, was discussed, debated in the parliament,
08:48in other institutions of the European Union many times.
08:52So I truly believe that they understand the situation, and they understand that the government of Donald Tusk is trying
09:00to restore,
09:01rebuild the rule of law in Poland.
09:05And we will be fully consistent in that way.
09:08And I believe we will do that.
09:11You are right that this is an unprecedented situation, not only in Poland, but in the whole Europe.
09:16Never happened before.
09:17But we are where we are, and we need to act on the battlefield where we are.
09:24All right.
09:25Michal Wawrekiewicz, member of the European People's Party in the European Parliament.
09:29Thank you very much.
09:30Now I want to hear from the other side of the issue.
09:34And to do this, Polish Secretary of State and advisor to President Nawrowski, Marcin Pszedacz, joins us now.
09:40Good morning to you.
09:42Good morning.
09:43Very good morning.
09:44Hello, sir.
09:44So, the government says it is trying to restore the tribunal's independence after years of political interference.
09:51President Nawrowski says the government is trying to take control of the court.
09:55Which side is defending the Constitution?
09:59Well, definitely restoring any kind of rule of law, which the government claims should not be done by the 3
10:08,000 riot police
10:09entering the premises of the constitutional tribunal.
10:13And that is what happened in the evening of Friday, when people in Poland were heading towards their families out
10:23of Warsaw for the All Saints Day.
10:25It was a very quiet in the capital of Poland evening.
10:30The president was on his way to Senegal.
10:32And suddenly we learned that Prime Minister Tusk sent 3,000 riot police troops in order to, as they say,
10:43clean the constitutional tribunal without any legal basis for that.
10:49Of course, there is a crisis.
10:50Of course, there is a dispute over that.
10:53But even the lawyers who are very close to the liberal government says that there is absolutely no legal basis
11:02for such a behavior of the government.
11:05What's more, the president of the Supreme Court and the president of the National Administrative Court, so the two most
11:12important judges in Poland,
11:14they also said publicly that there is absolutely no legitimate basis for such a behavior of the government.
11:21So that's why we are in such a crisis now in Poland.
11:24Sir, I mean, we all saw the scenes where President Noworowski entered the building, the tribunal building.
11:32Critics described the visit as a PR stunt to exert pressure on the court.
11:37Why did the president decide to intervene in person?
11:41And what exactly was he trying to achieve?
11:44Well, according to the Polish constitution, a president of the Republic of Poland is the guard of the constitution.
11:52So whenever he sees that the constitution is violated, he is obliged to react.
11:58But before going to the tribunal, he went to his own palace, invited the president of the Supreme Court in
12:05order to learn his perspective,
12:07in order to learn an expertise on that.
12:10What's going on and how should he treat it that?
12:13The president is the head of state with a very strong, strong, he's a legitimized leader, I mean, with a
12:21very strong mandate.
12:23More than 10 million people voted directly for him.
12:26But he wanted to learn the perspective of the legal perspective.
12:31After learning that it's all illegal, he went there in order to first learn on the basis what's going on
12:39there.
12:39The second, to help the legitimate president and the deputy president of the tribunal enter the building in order to
12:48restore the order.
12:50Unfortunately, he was blocked by those appointees of Prime Minister Tusk who are claiming that there are judges.
12:59But as Prime Minister Tusk publicly said, these are his judges.
13:05So the Prime Minister Tusk says, these are my judges.
13:08We believe that there shouldn't be any my, his or their judges.
13:13There should be legitimate legal judges, not Tusk's judges.
13:17Okay, sir.
13:17Are President Nawrotsky and Prime Minister Tusk now effectively fighting a constitutional war?
13:24Well, as I said, there is a constitutional crisis, definitely.
13:29And the people of Poland gathered in front of the tribunal protesting against that kind of situation,
13:36mostly protesting, of course, against the entrance of police.
13:40They do, there are evidence that there is a crisis.
13:46What President Nawrotsky said and did after that, he invited all the political parties to the palace in order to
13:53talk.
13:53Because we believe that in democracy, it is the dialogue which may solve the crisis.
13:59The problem is that Prime Minister Tusk was not eager to really talk.
14:07He just issued his statement through the public television saying that he will not step back from that
14:15and he will only keep the police there in the constitutional tribunal.
14:21So all the other parties are very much eager to talk and to consult.
14:25And there is one main message coming from all the parties.
14:28It cannot be like this.
14:30There is a need for any kind of restart of a situation.
14:34So we do believe that based on that, we will build something positive.
14:39All right.
14:39Polish Secretary of State and Presidential Advisor Marcin Przedasz, thank you very much this morning.
14:46Almost 5,000 dead, more than 10,000 infected.
14:50The Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo is escalating.
14:54Yet the international response is struggling to keep pace.
14:58The Elders, a group of former world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, are demanding urgent action.
15:04Earlier, I spoke to one of their most influential personalities, former Irish President Mary Robinson.
15:10And I started by asking her whether we're witnessing a global health emergency that the world is simply choosing to
15:17ignore.
15:18Here's what she said.
15:19It's really tragic what's happening, because this is the fastest moving Ebola.
15:2510,000 cases and about 50 percent mortality, which means more than 5,000 people have died.
15:32But worse than that, they're not able to follow up on the contacts because of the situation in the Democratic
15:39Republic of Congo.
15:40Of course, I know it well from my time as mediator for the Great Lakes in Africa, for the UN.
15:45And there is an urgent need for resources to help with contacts, to help the health workers, the frontline health
15:53workers, and to help with humanitarian access, etc.
15:57It has now spread.
15:59There are some cases also in Kenya, in Uganda, in Nigeria and France.
16:04So it is very dangerous because of the fact that they are not able to trace the contacts, much less
16:12than in the Ebola in 2014, for example.
16:15And this is very worrying.
16:17So the elders are calling for more international action.
16:21What exactly are you demanding?
16:23Is it more money, more medical personnel, or a totally different international approach to this crisis?
16:30We're so worried that we actually wrote an open letter to the G20 because 3 billion euros was pledged, but
16:40only a billion is being released.
16:43And of course, the G20 includes members of the EU.
16:47So we ask for the release of the funds that were pledged and are needed really urgently.
16:52And this should include specific funds to protect, pay, and support health workers and community leaders for village centres' responses
17:01to the frontline and funds for humanitarian early recovery needs.
17:06It also calls for guaranteed fair access to approved vaccines and treatment for priority groups.
17:12First, to counter mutation risks, because there is a mutation risk, apparently, particularly in the DRC, and address the security
17:22dimension of the crisis by pressurising armed groups in the DRC and neighbouring countries with influence to allow safe access
17:30for health and humanitarian workers.
17:32They're the main calls that we make in that open letter.
17:36It was really very worrying, as I said, to see how quickly this is spreading, how high the mortality rate
17:44is, and only a billion of the three billion pledged has actually been released to address it.
17:52So you've been a leading international voice for human rights and international global justice.
17:59This is kind of a tough question.
18:02Is the impression right that the international community treats African lives as less valuable than European and American lives?
18:11I'm afraid it is a tough question, but you have to feel that, you know, the lives of those who
18:18are invisible to us, they're poor, they live in remote areas that are under difficulty of militias and armed groups,
18:26and we don't care enough.
18:28We don't care enough.
18:29We don't care enough.
18:29That's true.
18:30And are Western governments guilty of complacency here, or are they simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crisis and
18:39shrinking aid budgets?
18:41I think there are a number of factors that distract governments, but the point we're making is this is dangerous.
18:49If you have a highly communicable disease and you're not able to trace the contacts because you don't have the
18:56resources to do it, it will spread further.
18:59And this could be really serious, particularly for African countries, but then it will spread to Europe.
19:06Former Irish President Mary Robinson on the growing Ebola crisis in Africa.
19:11More news today on all our platforms until we see each other again tomorrow.
19:18That's it for today.
19:19I thank you for watching.
19:20I'm Stefan Grobe.
19:21Take care.
19:24Take care.
19:54Take care.
19:54Take care.
19:55Take care.
19:57Take care.
19:58Take care.
19:59Take care.
19:59Take care.
20:00Take care.
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