TOUS POUR UN, UN POUR TOUS? THE NECESSARILY CONVERGENT ROLES OF ECJ,COMMISSION, NATIONAL COURTS AND LAWYERS IN RESISTING DEMOCRATIC BACKSLIDING

The contribution, which is a part of the general section of 2020 Bratislava Legal Forum, tries to draw some general lessons from Polish cases on the independence of the judiciary, which were dealt with in recent times by the European Court of justice. It starts from the international (political) dimension, just to see that it is not the most appropriate one to effectively deal with serious rule of law problems that may arise in member States. It then moves to the interindividual dimension, to see how it can help to overcome the limits of the international political one, how it reinforces the international legal remedies, and how it can be reinforced, on its turn, by such external dimension. In light of the general object of the 2020 Bratislava Legal Forum conference, it is finally stressed that the role of lawyers, although not evident at first sight, is an important one in the collective and necessarily coordinated action required to cope with national measures not in line with the common rule of law requirements