Talk:Law and Justice/Archives/2020/May

Ideology

"PiS is in fact an ultra right party which carries echo's of the German Nazi party's policies before the second world war." That's a pretty extreme statement. No one is going to debate whether Poland has just voted for Nazis or not? 68.218.182.215 21:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

It's not just extreme, it's NPOV and removed. Trilemma 22:39, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

At the gay demonstration banned by Lech Kaczyński, the anti-gay protestors shouted nazi slogans such as "Auschwitz! Tralalala!" and made nazi salutes, as well as throwing stones and bottles and participants. However, while Kaczyński's failure to criticise this is shocking (IMHO), these protestors were mostly from the "young people" component of the LPR, not PiS. IMHO "echos of the German Nazi party's policies before the second world war" is probably a reasonably correct statement. Unfortunately, it is not exaggeration. However, while the statement is probably correct (if a reasonable interpretation is made), "echos" is rather vague, so for me this is not so much an NPOV problem, it's a vagueness problem.

Do we really need a special section: "Attitude to homosexuals' political and job rights" in this article? It is important, but there are much more interesting things about PiS to mention (social and taxes policy, foreign policy, atitude to European Union). Homosexual's rights aren't nowadays the main political question in Poland. Morover, PiS isn't so homophobic party as some people would maintain.

Poland is the country in which homosexuals were sent to concentration camps and massacred in large numbers. It happened under foreign occupation, sure, but it happened on Polish territory. And now people are throwing stones and bottles against homosexuals and making nazi salutes. In any case, if you have some NPOV facts to add to the article, then go ahead, add them. Boud 02:55, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

You will find that PIS are not going aginst the grain and are not extreme; they merely reflect the attitude the Polish people have; the Polish people are maily anti-abortion, practising Catholics, anti gay marriage and for execution; so is PIS; they merly reprsent the people and that is what democracy is about; DEMOCRACY IS NOT ABOUT ALLOWING LIBERALS TO HAVE THEIR WAY BUT WHAT THE PEOPLE WHAT- AND IN POLANFD LOIBERALS ARE A SMALL MINORITY.

"It happened under foreign occupation, sure, but it happened on Polish territory." What's your point? Territory? Second World War? It's over man and has nothing to do with! Nevertheless I agree that attitude to homosexuals should be mentioned clearly. But I can't pass over such inappriopriate argumentation with silence... PolishMan 21, November 2005

Warschauer 02:28, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Unless a complete, detailed description of a broad base of PiS's platform is created, continuing concentration on one smaller aspect is inapropriate.Trilemma 01:55, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

So feel free to add the other parts of its platform. From what i've heard, PiS claims it will do a lot to defend social human rights which people have had since the communist epoch, even while it opposes individual human rights. Feel free to find the primary (or secondary) sources and collect and organise the information from them. Boud 02:55, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm absolutely shocked on how little information is put in the party's political program. Other parties, like the demokraci, have so much written on them, but that party barely got any vote. It would be like not talking about the Democrats but a lot of information on the Green Party of USA. Viktor

Hi. I'll leave the editing to others. Check this out - an official English summary of PiS's policies. http://www.pis.org.pl/dokumenty/PiS_Press_Release.pdf

Just a quick note for the paragraphs below: PiS refers to Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice), and PO refers to Platforma Obywatelska (The Citizen's Platform aka Civic Platform)

I would also encourage editors to treat suggestions that this party is socialist with scepticism. Their proposition to scrap the 40% upper tax band, reduce the lower one by 1% to 18% and progressively reduce the 32% middle band to 28% is quite a radical reduction in taxes. They also want to gradually reduce the upper VAT level from the current 22%. One should expect a certain degree of social spending from a centre-right party. They also support privatisation, which has been considered an overwhelming failure by many Poles. This can hardly be called socialist, and this was probably a media overreaction to their opposition to the 15% flat tax of the Citizen's Platform, which was favoured by the media, and, in addition, PiS's electoral campaign, which did play on the fears of ordinary Poles WRT the proposition of the rival party to scrap most forms of tax relief.

They have a program called "Tanie Państwo" which literally means "Cheap State." It is summarised as "ograniczenie wydatków na administację państwową, rządową i samorządową," lit. "the reduction of state, government and local government administration expenditures." PiS considers the government bureaucracy to be extensive, inefficient and corrupt and proposes, among other things, a 20% reduction in employment in the administration.

This party also portrays itself as fiercely anti-communist and purportedly wants to reduce the role that former communist special service agents play in the state.

There are also two viewpoints with regard to why coalition talks collapsed. On the one hand, PO supporters and the vast majority of media suggest that this was due to the incompatibility of the two parties' programs WRT social spending, and in addition due to the triumphalism and inability to compromise of the winning party, while PiS supporters and a small number of right wing media outlets are keen to remind the reader that PO was offered half of all government posts and that the whole thing collapsed over MSWiA (the ministry of internal affairs and administration) - something neither party would compromise on. They suspect that this was because PO wanted to keep the current special service elite in place.

Like I said, I'll let others do the editing. There is quite a lot of controversy regarding the elections in Poland, and I'd suggest the authors be as neutral as possible. I tried to represent more of PiS's take on things above, since I think that that POV is underrepresented. I hope that this'll be useful and will help y'all. Michael

I think that PIS is more christian-socialist party than conservative-national party. In Poland conserwative-national party was Liga Polskich Rodzin (The League of Polish Families), not PiS. In fact LPR was more like NSDAP than PiS. And I know a bit about that since I'm Polish and a christian socialist too. However PiS is in fact in half between socialism and liberalism. They criticise liberal economy as leading to monopolies unless governement prevents it, yet they think too much governement regulation isn't good too. They consider governement role as a guardian, preventing the situation from getting out of hand and defending small, local companies from being ovelhelmend by large, international corporations. They also mean to reduce bureocracy. They support privacy, yet they think that energetics, public transport and such are strategically important for the country so they should be in governement hands. --LunarBird (talk) 10:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Description of ideology in infobox is a joke, someone called the PiS a nationalist party, does not mean that it is. These are not serious sources in this matter.The basis is the party's program and political situation, and it is such that the only nationalist party in Poland (1% of support) is the enemy of the PiS and fights it. JackStrong12 (talk) 14:16, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

International Comparison

It was a good idea to provide an international comparison for the party, but whoever keeps editing it back to say that the PiS is similar to the German CSU or the Austrian OVP should stop putting their subjective judgment into a neutral article. The PiS is certainly more to the left on economic issues than the German CSU and Austrian OVP, and certainly further to the right on cultural issues than both these parties. The European Parliament allows parties across Europe with similar political programs to group together, and so the most neutral thing to say is simply that the PiS is affiliated through the Union for a Europe of Nations (UEN) with parties such as Italy's Alleanza Nazionale.

It was a good idea to mention its european parliament affiliation, but that edit also ended up incorrect − for example PiS is not "anti-EU" at all (although other members of the UEN are), although it appears to have reservations about details in the way the EU runs. I've tried to put your comparison of differences with the CSU and OVP in, but PiS's economic policies differ in various ways from them depending on the topic (left or right), so it's hard to make a blanket statement. Deuar 11:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

My intention was not to say that the PiS is the SAME as OVP or CSU, but only MOST SIMILAR. I am aware of the differences, although I don't really think that they are so big to write about them. Alleanza Nazionale is a party with neo-fascist past, so I would be reluctant to compare it to Law and Justice. And, last but not least, i'm not sure if you could say about a party which wants to decrease taxes, continue privatization, and diminish bureaucracy, that it has centre-left stance on fiscal issues. Ammon86 14:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Ammon86, Poland's recent history and the political landscape in and against which PiS defines itself is so very different from that of Germany and Austria, that comparisons with any parties in those countries create more confusion than they could possibly explain. --Thorsten1 22:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that comparison to CSU and OVP parties is accurate, for few reasons: first, both PiS and these parties are socially conservative in such cases as abortion and same-sex marriage; all three are centrist or possibly even centre-left on fiscal issues, and all of these parties base on Social Magisterium of the Catholic Church in their policies. And besides, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice, when asked in interview to polish quarterly Nowe Państwo (New State) in 10.01.2006, to which european party the PiS could be compared, replied that his party is situating somewhere between german CDU and CSU parties, and also, it has some resemblances to OVP. But he stated that these are only analogies. You can look at this interview (in polish) here: http://wiadomosci.onet.pl/1305686,2677,1,1,kioskart.html Ammon86 08:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

In Sweden the Moderate Party "emphasises personal freedom, free markets, privatisation and reduction of the public-sector growth rate, while still supporting most of the social benefits introduced since the 1930s. The party emphasises issues such as actions against crime, lower taxes, a strong defence and quality in the education system". You can also say 90% of these things about the Law and Justice. The Moderate Party is considered centrist party on fiscal issues, but the PiS, with similar programme, you consider as centre-left. Please write some justification. Ammon86 09:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Ammon86, but your sweeping comparisons with CSU and OVP don't hold any water. Let me point you to some decisive differences. Both the CDU and its regional version CSU, as well as the OVP have histories spanning the entire post-war history of their respective countries and are mainstays of the party landscape. They are also volksparteien, i.e. they represent the interests and enjoy the support of large parts of the electorate, typically reaching around 40 per cent of the votes with turnouts around 80%. Their existence is independent of any charismatic leaders, in fact they have produced several generations of leaders.

PiS, on the other hand, was formed as recently as 2001, is totally focused on the appeal of its two identical founding fathers, and has yet to prove it is more than a temporary phenomenon in Poland's ever changing right-wing political landscape. PiS is characterized by an aggressive, populist affect against the entire political establishment, something which is totally absent from both the CDU/CSU and the OVP, and quite logically so, since they are very much part of the political establishment. By the same token, PiS represents an isolationist, resentment-ridden foreign policy which cannot be found in any of the parties you cite. Also, PiS lacks the broad electoral support of CDU/CSU and OVP, having achieved roughly a quarter of the votes with a turn-out representing less than half of the potential electorate. You cite the issues of abortion and same-sex marriages; you will probably not find any centrist or right-of-center party in Europe that would support these. However, their rejection is a very low-key issue for the German and Austrian conservatives. There is an official homosexual comitee in the CDU/CSU, which even advocates adoption for same-sex couples; Hamburg's mayor, of the CDU, is known to be gay. This is in complete contrast to PiS, which tends to make the rejection of all things homosexual some kind of political touchstone.

With your superficial "evidence", PiS will actually look "similar" to almost any major conservative/liberal/right-of-center party in Western Europe, in which case there's no point at all in singling out the CSU, ÖVP, or the Moderate Party. However, taking a slightly closer look, PiS turns out to be decisively different from any of those parties, due to its different political environment, its voter demographic, its internal structure, its underlying ideology etc. Finally, your source doesn't prove anything at all, except maybe for Kaczyński's wishful thinking. I can well believe that he hopes his party will have a future similar to the parties of Western mainstream conservatism, but that just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. BTW, Kaczynski has alway stressed his ignorance about all things German, so he is hardly qualified to make any such comparisons with CDU or CSU. Quite apart from that, being (or striving to be) a neutral encyclopedia, we must not base our descriptions of politicians and parties on what they describe themselves as, but what independent observers describe them as. Therefore, it might still be acceptable to quote Kaczynski's self-comparison with a proper reference, but we absolutely musn't present it as an objectively true fact the way you're trying to. --Thorsten1 22:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

You said that one of the major differences between PiS and parties like CDU/CSU or OVP is that PiS don’t have as big voter support as these parties. In the Netherlands, CDA, a party which is very similar to german CDU, in last three elections received results around 27-28% - almost the same as PiS in 2005 polish parliamentary elections.

CDU at the beginning of its existance based heavily on personality of Konrad Adenauer.

PiS has a very strong “law and order” stance, typical for right-wing parties in coutries tackling with heavy corruption, so it’s natural that it’s anti-establishment, because polish establishment is more similar to russian or italian (before the Mani Pulite, or Clean Hands, action) than, for example american. Proof – the Rywin affair.

Now, issues of abortion and same-sex marriage – I suppose that you have little knowledge about european right, because many major right-wing or centre-right parties on this continent are socially liberal on both of these things. Examples are: british Conservative Party, swedish Moderate Party, dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy or Conservative Party of Norway. So it is not a common thing for a european right-wing party, and that’s why I’ve made a comparison to CSU and OVP when talking about these issues.

You wrote that “PiS tends to make the rejection of all things homosexual some kind of political touchstone”. Well, I could agree that this party defends the traditional definition of marriage and is against promotion of LGBT ideology, but you are going too far in your statement. Kaczynski stated in few interviews that he is against discrimination and violence towards people of different sexual orientation.

I would disagree that PiS has different voter demographics, than for example, the CSU, which has a strong support in the rural parts of Bavaria, or dutch CDA, which is “mainly supported by religious voters (...). These tend to live in rural areas and tend to be elderly.”

Now, I repeat that I am aware of the differences between the PiS and these parties which I included in comparison. But I believe it is a good idea to make such thing. Look at the articles about dutch political parties, from which the idea was borrowed – almost every major party has International Comparison section. And I think it is helpful in describing them :) Ammon86 07:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

POV

This article does not appear to be written from a neutral point of view. Hence, I have added that template at the top. As background: This is a very mainstream political party which gathered about 27% of the votes in recent elections, and apparently has even higher support in opinion polls now.

However, in this article we find e.g.:

• Reference to a weird fringe website which appears to be a purveyor of amateur theories. I read the news every day here in Warsaw, they love attacking politicians, but I have never heard of any involvement by some IRI from the US.
• While PiS are clearly not supporters of the gay movement, this is really a very minor issue in their political program, if it's there at all. It does not deserve 2/3 of the Political program section. They talk about the usual -- creating more jobs, dealing with a falling birthrate, combatting corruption, etc. Get real, people!
  • So please add some NPOV facts on their claims of creating more jobs, contributing to overpopulation, combatting corruption etc. There are some comments above to help you get started. Boud 00:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Boud for putting those headings in. I wish someone who actually supports them (and hence, cares enough) would fill them in. Otherwise i'll eventually feel I have to get off my butt and find out. Groan. Deuar 13:37, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, here, I'm not a fan of PiS in any respect, and would never vote for them (don't you vote for them either! ;-)), but the bizzare impression I get from reading this article is that its a smear campaign against Poland rather than a factual article. Deuar 18:55, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

"On 10 April 2010, its former leader Lech Kaczyński was killed in the 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash." - This line suggests that Lech Kaczyński has been killed/murdered purposely, rather than the crash being an accident. Shouldn't it change to "On 10 April 2012, its former leader Lech Kaczyński died in the 2012 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.68.202 (talk) 12:25, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

+1 NPOV: see e.g. here Radio Poland: Polish conservatives win regional vote: 'late poll'. Intro to be adapted accordingly. --84.226.141.191 (talk) 10:09, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

IRI

i have written the IRI reference as:

which, according to the US federal government funded International Republican Institute (IRI), had been to a large degree organised by the IRI [1].

Deuar: i suggest you read the IRI's own claims for having largely organised the AWS: http://www.iri.org/countries.asp?id=8369274321 Have a look through their web site. It is not just some IRI, it is a USA federal budget funded institution involved in regime change around the world. Whether this method of regime change is good or bad is a POV. The fact that the IRI (and the Democrats' NDI) is involved in regime change, or from its point of view, promotion of democracy, i.e. funding center-right political parties, is an NPOV fact. Boud 00:04, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok - I've read that weppage. Honestly, I found it extremely anglo-centric (US-centric?), and seemingly set up as an advertisement for reading by the IRI's funding sources. If I was some clueless american, I could be forgiven for thinking the IRI was doing all the work, and the Polish politicians were just along for the ride. Note also how there's no mention of anything that happened after 1997. Maybe the AWS is still happily governing away?

In any case, the whole issue if IRI involvement does not belong in the introductory paragraph:

• It's not even about PiS, but the AWS, and concerns a time period (up to 1997) when PiS was either nonexistent, or still irrelevant to the political scene.
• Introductory paragraphs are meant to give defining characteristics of a topic. IRI involvement would not be a defining characteristic even if its support was significant and ongoing, or even if we were talking about the AWS.
• As a case in point, note how the IRI is given more priority in this PiS article than even in the (more relevant) AWS article. Claims of its importance are also more inflated here. Compare the ludicrous "... to a large degree orgainzed by ..." with "played a major role in uniting".

I would be inclined to remove the IRI comments altogether, but in the interests of avoiding reverts etc., i'm moving them lower down. Deuar 15:32, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

When the militarily most powerful country on this planet sets up organisations to get involved in the national politics of other countries, i hardly think that is irrelevant to the political scene. It may not be widely known, but there is no evidence to suggest that it is exaggerated.

• i do not see how you can claim that IRI involvement was not a defining characteristic - if the diverse right-wing parties had not found a way to get together, then they would never have got into power at all.
• I could be forgiven for thinking the IRI was doing all the work, and the Polish politicians were just along for the ride: getting a diverse range of small political parties to work together when everyone's struggling for power and probably many of them still, deep down, have some ideals is necessarily something difficult. An organisation which can bring in big bucks, people doing strategic opinion polls, people skilled in political manipulation of all sorts, people experienced in manipulating, whoops, talking to the media, and you can get these small parties to unite. That doesn't mean that the Polish politicians were just along for the ride: they certainly wanted power, but they were willing to accept US budget funded political strategy advice in order to get to power.

i'm putting the reference into the history section. It is not trivial when the militarily most powerful country on this planet sets up organisations to get involved in the national politics of other countries and then those organisations actually do get involved in those national politics. Boud 01:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

structure of the page

Attitude to homosexuals' political and job rights and Government Representative for the Equal Status of Women and Men are not criticisms of PiS: they are a list of things that happened and/or were stated, which show parts of PiS' political program - whether or not they show PiS as good or bad is a PoV. The fact that they are actions by Kaczyński and by PiS are NPOV facts. Boud 01:08, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Translation and major edit

With the aim of making this article less lopsided, i'm in the process of translating the information in the more extensive article from the Polish wikipedia. Also, I have moved the existing part on policies regarding gay and equal opportunity rights to its own section. The aim of that move is to achieve a general review of topics in the "political program" section (balanced with respect to completeness), without removing the coverage of the particular issues which have attracted so much attention in the english language article. Deuar 12:05, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

A ja bede muwił po wiejskiej odmianie polskiego: PiS najlepszoł partioł jest (na drugim miejscu som: LPR i Samoobrona)

"Conservative"

Describing the PiS as "conservative" is simply misleading, as the party advocates very different policies from those of conservative parties of Europe, including aggressive nationalism, homophobia and anti-semitism - it clearly has close ties to the anti-semitic broadcaster Radio Maryja. I would compare the PiS to the NPD of Germany rather than the conservative CDU.

It is more appropriate to describe it as nationalist, and obviously anti-semitic connections should not be erased from the article. Skruee 15:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree. The label "conservative" is certainly too weak and too vague - the Civic Platform (PO) is conservative, too, resembling the German CDU more closely. Also, PiS is nationalist, at least by West European standards, and its homophobia can hardly be denied, either. However, it has never been foolish enough to style itself as anti-Semitic - in contrast to its brandnew bedfellows in the League of Polish Families, which more closely resembles the conventional nationalist parties in West European countries. PiS received considerable support from the (among other things) fiercely anti-Semitic Radio Maryja. This must be seen in its pre-election context, when Radio Maryja mobilised its listenership against PiS's more liberal, poll-leading rival PO. But that fact alone does not make the party anti-Semitic. One can call PiS many things, with varying degrees of justification, including but not limited to "conservative", "populist", "pro-welfare state", "intolerant", "homopobhic", "anti-German", "anti-Russian", "anti-European", "anti-liberal" - you name it. But branding it "anti-Semitic" is implying too much. Last but not least, it would also trivialise real anti-Semitic forces. I hope we can agree on a description that doesn't hide any of the charges being made against this party, but doesn't raise new ones, either. --Thorsten1 18:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The claim that someone advocates anti-semitism is pretty serious. As such, it requires correspondingly serious evidence. None has been presented so far, and unless someone finds such evidence, the article shouldn't make unsupported claims of this sort. Please see WP:V. Furthermore, even if true, this sort of statement does not belong in the introduction of an encyclopedic article. Please see WP:NPOV, especially "Let the facts speak about themselves", explaining why the Hitler article does not start with "Hitler was a bad man..." Deuar 23:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

"aggressive nationalism, homophobia and anti-semitism" can be described as pretty conservative traits. EvilEuropean (talk) 09:37, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

it's national conservative

I have to agreed this is national conservative. And i disagree that conservatism equals homophobia and anti-semitism - it's totaly not true of course as far as we talk about Polish conservatism. Examle - Polish President (PiS related) in synagogue.

I agree with you. --Checco (talk) 11:08, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

2001 cat added

I think a political party is a "long lasting" phenomenon so adding a particular year category is somehow misleading. I guess you meant the creation of the party. Still, the qualification is doubious for me. I could elaborate on it. But let me simply suggest that maybe a "long lasting" category would suit better ("XXI century" or so)? Personally, I'd refrain from even giving this cat - as it is not clear now whether Law and Justice (or any other party) is relevant enough to this. Best, --Beaumont (@) 12:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Far-Left?

Could any one provide any academic references and soruces to the PiS characterization as far-left, before he or she reinserts this categorization. C mon 00:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no reason to label PiS as far-left party, and nobody, neither supporters nor opponents would do so. It's just a plain vandalism... Ammon86 11:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

No, this isn´t any vandalism. It gives a clear definition of "anti-german" from german "Verfassungsschutz", which fulfil PiS. And the "Verfassungsschutz" tells, that "anti-german" is far-left. Deutscher Patriot 13:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're not making much sense. What "gives a clear definition ..."? I have to say this is the first time I've heard that "anti-german" means far-left. This is a pretty bizzare statement. On the side, I should also point out that neither PiS nor any notable member of it is particularly anti-german anyway. They have an exaggerated issue with the Prussian Claims Society, but that's about it. Deuar 17:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Personally I don't care how you prove that the PiS is far left (although this proof seems non-sensical, none of the relations in "PiS=anti-german=far left" hold.) as long as you prove it: can you find an academic or journalistic reference for it. C mon

They are far-left when it comes to economic issues, far-right when it comes to religion or nationalism. -KiloByte (talk) 22:38, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Political program section is out of date

This whole section and its subsections are getting out of date. They seem to have been written in the heat of the moment soon after PiS formed government about a year ago. Also, the Social issues subsection is pretty embarassing for a serious encyclopedia. It covers only a tiny fragment of relevant issues, and the choice of what topics were covered suffers from a painfully obvious political lean. Deuar 15:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree. The economic section needs to be rewritten to reflect what the party is actually doing, which is very different from its pre-election rhetorics. PiS is neither leftist or rightist. It's simultaneously hostile to both big businesses and labor unions. Basically the party just wants to maximize its control over the economy. Balcerowicz put it best, I think: PiS are "conservative marxists or anti-communist communists." It's hard to convey this paradox without sounding too critical. --Chernyshevsky 15:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that you have the right to have any opinion about this party or about actions of PiS-led government, I must remind you that this is encyclopedia, and as such it shouldn't reflect anybody's political views, but instead it should be objective to highest possible degree. To say that PiS are "conservative marxists or anti-communist communists" is just a weak political propaganda with no connection to reality. I see no signs of marxist thinking in their programme or policy. Frankly, they are quite liberal on many economic issues, such as tax decreases or continuation of privatization. Milton Friedman once said, when commenting tranformation of eastern european nations that "It turns out that the rule of law is probably more basic than privatization. Privatization is meaningless if you don't have the rule of law." That is what PiS is trying to do. Implement the rule of law in Poland, for example in privatization, which they are doing via stock exchange, not through tenders, where there were many possibilities of corruption. They also implemented many other anti-corruption policies, and that is the main reason they receive so much hatred from polish "elites", talking about PiS wanting to "maximize its control over the economy". Ammon86 18:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, those are not my words. If you are going to dismiss Balcerowicz's criticism as having no "connection to reality", then I really don't know what to say. We're talking about a man who was credited with creating the current economic reality in Poland in the first place. --83.7.176.68 22:52, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't mean that all (if any) of his political diagnosis are accurate, and that he is not making mistakes. He may be not a bad economist, but that doesn't mean that he cannot get driven by emotions in his judgements. Ammon86 09:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

national conservatism or conservatism

Regarding recent edits of infobox as to whether the party should be considered conservatives or national conservatives. In the National conservative article:

... a type of conservatism which is mainly concerned with promoting nationalist feelings, as well as upholding cultural and ethnic identity.

Note the word "mainly" which was italicised here by me. PiS is not mainly concerned with these issues, although as we know they do form some significant part of their attitude, sure. The above definition is well applicable to the League of Polish Families, though.

Please do not suppose that you can get a balanced view of the internal politics of some country by reading a couple of random foreign media articles. They understandably concentrate only on those few things which will be unusual, shocking, or otherwise of interest to overseas people who mostly care nothing about local Polish issues. Normal everyday issues are alomst never covered in such articles, although they form the bulk of the politics of mainstream parties, among them the "Law and Justice" party. Deuar 14:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I do think that Law and Justice is a national-conservative party as Italy's National Alliance, which is fairly more moderate, is. The definition of national conservatism in that page can be incorrect, but PiS is definitely national-conservative, as stated also in Parties and Elections. PiS is not such a conservative party for Polish standards, but here we need to attain ourselves to European standars. Moreover, PiS is member of the Alliance for Europe of the Nations. --Checco 15:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, PiS is national conservative by the above definition, similar to the National Alliance in Italy, as Checco has stated. —Nightstallion 15:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, some of Checco's points appear to be valid. I looks like the definition over at national conservatism (that I mentioned above) is what is in the wrong. I'm not sure how well informed parties-and-elections.de is, but I note that here where they define their categories, "national-conservative" is not properly defined, rather given as a variant of "conservative". Presumably, it is meant to denote parties that concentrate a bit more on national interests, as they put it, than your standard "conservative" party. The definition over at national conservatism is rather a definition of plain nationalism, and should be amended. Deuar 09:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As the definition in national conservatism's article was emended correctly by Deaur, can we define PiS as national-conservative now? --Checco 11:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Aye! —Nightstallion 11:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the definition of PiS as a national-conservative party. Italian National Alliance is a party which origin is neo-fascism, and was stained with anti-Semitism and generally was rather radical party. On the opposite, PiS predecessor was the Centre Agreement (Porozumienie Centrum), centrist and christian democratic party. PiS definitely is not an anti-semitic party as many of its leaders are people of Jewish heritage (eg. deputy prime minister Dorn or minister Wasserman). PiS main concern is not "upholding national identity" but fight with corruption. Their stance in foreign politics is of course much more decisive than that of previous polish governments, but decisive foreign politics isn't anything unusual for conservative parties. Margaret Thatcher fought very fiercely for position of her country in the EU, and strongly emphasised patriotism eg. during Falkands war and after it (before 1983 elections), but nobody defined her and her party as national-conservative. Ammon86 16:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Valid points also. Now I don't know much about "national conservatism" - never heard of the term before this discussion here, but neither anti-semitism nor fascism are menitoned anywhere in its WP article. Is their lack or presence relevant? For example in that article, we have Likud listed, which obviously never had anything to do with anti-semitism or fascism.

The more I follow this thread, the more it seems to me that the national conservatism article is in poor shape, and possibly approaching some sort of own research. At first glance it has some references, but upon closer inspection, they're just newspaper cuttings about tangential topics. No sources about the meaning of the term or about political systems as such. I think it's clear PiS are conservatives and christian democrats, perhaps we should just leave it at that. Certainly, removing national conservatism is what should be done if the term carries implications of fascism or anti-semitism in english. Deuar 22:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I very much doubt that "national conservatism" carries, that kind of connotation -- unless Ammon has got a source for that, I sincerely question that idea. National conservatism would indeed have been an apt description of Thatcher's politics, if you ask me. —Nightstallion 13:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I am only against comparing PiS to parties like Alleanza Nazionale, parties with fascist and anti-semitic past. I'm not really sure if such term like national conservatism really exist, and I agree with Deuar that it looks more like some own research than scientific term, and in my opinion it is mainly used to create negative association of some conservative parties with national socialism. Nevertheless, if it exists, I see no reason to define PiS as national conservative party, as they emphasize patriotism, but certainly not nationalism. Ammon86 16:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Indeed national conservatism is not nationalism and AN is a very moderate party compared to PiS, despite its past. Remember also that AN is the strongest supporter of Israel in Italy. National conservatism does not carry any fascist connotation: simply a national-conservative party is a conservative party emphasizing patriotism, social conservatism and the welfare state, instead of being a staunch supporter of economical liberalism as normally conservatives are. --Checco 02:38, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, PiS is also lukewarm about economic liberalism, indeed. Are you sure about "AN is a very moderate party compared to PiS", though? Now I can't say for sure because I know almost nothing about AN, but I wonder if you might be lumping the until-recently coalition partners League of Polish Families and Samoobrona with PiS in that? Deuar 09:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

AEN is a very loose group (launched by very moderate-conservative and economically liberal Fianna Fail, but, anyway, AN is trying to enter in the EPP. On the issues, AN supports strongly US, Israel and European integration, it is economically liberal (but less than Forza Italia, though) and its leader Fini is a supporter of stem cell research and civil unions. The party is anyway national-conservative because of its strong patriotism and its mixed record in the economy (sometimes liberal, sometimes statist). What is sure is that AN is more centrist compared with PiS. --Checco 14:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

And AN is also a very against death penalty and many of its core supporters are criticizing it for its "too moderate" views. There were even various splits by hardline groups. --Checco 14:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Vocal criticism

"Human Rights Watch, for instance, called a government proposal to ban discussions of homosexuality in school a threat to basic rights." That is correct, but you should remember that this article is about Law and Justice party, and that proposal came from deputy education minister Mirosław Orzechowski, whose party is League of Polish Families, so it is inappropriate to put this on account of PiS.

"Reporters Without Borders, in its annual report, noted the governing party's intolerance of criticism and the privilege it grants to Radio Maryja..." Where in this raport do you see any notion about giving them "privileges"? In case of "intolerance of criticism", it was one case when they reacted on offence from die Tageszeitung, so this sentence is gravely exaggerated.

"The press freedom organization became especially alarmed in the Summer of 2007, when revelations about alleged wiretapping of journalists by the special service began to surface". That's right - alleged... These accusations came from Janusz Kaczmarek, former communist party (PZPR) member, trained as a political officer during communist rule in Poland, who was proven lying when testifying under oath, when he was accused of taking part in a leak about an anti-corruption operation against another former communist party member, Andrzej Lepper. He started to accuse government about these things just after when he was sacked from his post as interior minister under the charges of warning Lepper about the operation. He concealed informations about his communist past before prime minister and president, which were revealed only recently. Second person who was mentioned in the the reference when talking about alleged wiretaping was Sylwester Latkowski, journalist of post-communist weekly Polityka, in which few persons of editorial team were proven to be former agents of secret police during the time of PRL.

"The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights is a frequent critic of the party's policies. It has challenged government's actions on numerous occasions, on issues ranging from freedom of assembly, reproductive rights, and the rights of the accused..." - in case of freedom of assembly, it was about cancelling few Gay Pride Parades due to security concerns (possible clashes with far-right organizations); reproductive rights - it is euphemism which means abortion, and it is a scandal that this organization is using a cover of fighting for Human Rigths in order to impose left-wing agenda to its member countries; rights of the accused - is suggests that situation in Poland is similar to that of Putin's Russia - trials with no right to defence, imprisonment of political oponents etc. but the truth is that this accusations of breaking "rights of the accused" was in the case of doctor who was accused of fifty criminal offences and killing his patient, for which he was arrested.

"According to Reporters Without Borders, in 2006 Poland was ranked lowest of the then 25 EU members in their worldwide press freedom ranking, due to the perceived considerable institutional pressure exerted by those in power on the news media" - well i would say that situation is rather opposite, as before 2005 there was a considerable institutional pressure on centre-right and right-wing newspapers, and very few journalist of right-wing views were invited to the public television. Now situation is more balanced; of course, sometimes there are sharp verbal skirmishes between government figures and some journalist (mostly left-wing), but this is only rhetorics.

"In an editorial written following the arrest of an opposition figure, Adam Michnik, the editor-in-chief and dissident during communist times, said that he no long feel safe in Poland. "The Rubicon has been crossed; the Rubicon separating a law-governed democracy from the country of a creeping coup d'etat," he wrote." That "opposition figure" was Janusz Kaczmarek, who was accused of (and proven) of hindering of corruption trial. Adam Michnik is misusing his position of former dissident to attack his political opponents in foreign press. A former trotskyist, as an editor-in-chief he often used his Gazeta Wyborcza (until recently) dominant position on newspaper market to destroy many right-wing politicians with very unfavourable articles, and giving them no right to reply on Wyborcza's pages. If we would seek a person in polish political life who is showing signs of "intolerance of criticism", that person would be Adam Michnik, who files a lawsuits against almost everyone who dares to criticize him in public. His words about "creeping coup d'etat" were simply a lie, but the problem is that his statements in foreign media are rarely balanced by journalists and politicians of opposite political views.

"Former president Lech Wałęsa has called for the arrest of the Kaczyński brothers. "They have broken so many laws, they deserve to go to jail." Commenting on the increasing authoritarian methods the PiS government, the former leader of the Solidarity Movement said that "they are ready to impose martial martial law" to order to hold onto power." Former president Wałęsa is known of making numerous gaffes in his comments, and there are not many people in Poland who are taking them serious. He is not anyone significant in contemporary polish politics, and while he may have played a significant role in defeating communism in Poland, it turned out after '89 that he was a politician who was (and unfortunately still is) often driven by personal animosities in his judgments, and case of Kaczyński government isn't an exception.

This whole section is very biased and defamatory, and it's intention was to describe PiS as very authoritarian and undemocratic party... It is something normal to criticize politicians, but in Wikipedia we should write only about criticism which can be taken serious, and we should write about it in such a way to avoid any bias, no matter left- or right-wing. Ammon86 17:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Well it certainly suffers heavily from undue weight, like most sections of this type wikipedia-wide. I won't be crying for it if it is removed. There are so many more factual things that could fill out the article instead of this joyful creation. Deuar 22:33, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Of course it should be removed, but everyone should be informed why, otherwise we would probably have another senseless edit war... Ammon86 11:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree with you about removing those parts. --Checco 02:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

That's because the critics of PiS do paint the party as authoritarian and undemocratic. Just because you think their criticisms are unjustified and biased doesn't mean the world should be igorant for them. Chernyshevsky 11:04, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I will revert your edit because, as you see, we are 3 against 1 on this. In Wikipedia decision are not taken democratically but through consensus, and your positions has definitely less support than ours. Sorry. --Checco 14:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Removal of these sections means a misrepresentation of the actual situation. No objective observer of Poland would say that the party is only criticized for its views on homosexuality and the death penalty. Were these issues the reason Vaclav Havel called for elections with independent observers? No. The most salient criticism is that the actions and policies of PiS are damaging democracy in Poland. It's a view that's echoed through out the Western press. Chernyshevsky 07:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I unnderstand your criticism, but I think that you *should* respect consensus. --Checco 11:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Either we present all criticisms, or we present none. To imply that PiS is criticized mainly for its conservativism is to tell a lie.

As this section in its entirety concerns PiS in power, it'll cease to be relevant should the party loses the elections. I would not object to its complete removal in such a case. Chernyshevsky 11:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Consensus. I've nothing to say more. --Checco 11:25, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

And please do not remove my comments in talk page, as you did before. --Checco 17:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Removing old stuff

As PiS is ceasing to be the governing party in Poland, a lot of stuff in the article is no longer pertinent. The party's attitude towards homosexuals mattered greatly when it could force through laws unfavorable towards them. Now that it's removed, I see little reason to detail every occasion where Kaczynski &co displayed their homofobia. Chernyshevsky 23:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

We can shorten that section if you want, but I am strongly against removing the whole thing. --Checco 00:40, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see a reason to have a separate section on the party's views on homosexuality. They can be summed up in a single sentence: they're against gay marriage and dissemination of information about homosexuality. The section about equality opportunity should be cut too, as it doesn't really say anything. Chernyshevsky 11:15, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't see what's the problem. --Checco 11:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have a difficulty articulating your "strong objection." If you see a reason we should accentuate the anti-homosexual character of the PiS's ideology, please state it. --Chernyshevsky 16:43, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to accentuate anything, I only say that the current version is good for me. --Checco 18:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Good for you? Your personal preference has nothing to do with the merit of the passage. --Chernyshevsky 14:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it is balanced, well-written and worthy of a citation. --Checco 14:22, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is wrong that PiS is compared to British National Party as it is NOT against immigration and does not have any such views, no citation also exists —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tadeusz007 (talk • contribs) 01:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Requested Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was

Law and Justice → Law and Justice Party (Poland) —

There are many "Law and Justice" parties in the world, and the term "Law and Justice" is used for many things. Further, the abbreviation "PiS" is also used in English for this party. This is definitely not the primary usage of the term "law and justice" in English, and the party should be moved, and replaced with a dab page.

70.29.208.247 (talk) 11:01, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. No evidence is given to show need for this move. No other parties with the same name have articles at Wikipedia (the closest, Order, Lawfulness, Justice, hardly ambiguous). The only other entity with the same name at Wikipedia is Law & Justice (journal), a minor publication so the Polish party is clearly the primary topic. As for the English name of the party, the citations given in the article use "Law and Justice", not "PiS". — AjaxSmack 13:58, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Clearly primary use of the term. Bastin 18:24, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose: as the above comments, this is the clear primary topic and there is no ambiguity in practice. Knepflerle (talk) 11:46, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose The proposer states There are many "Law and Justice" parties in the world, yet fails to name even one. Wikipedia has clearly not come across any either. Skinsmoke (talk) 21:55, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Christian Democracy

Christian Democratic parties in the European Union are usually members of theEuropean People’s Party in the EU Parliament, e.g. the German CDU, French Union for a Popular Movement, Italian The People of Freedom and the Polish Civic Platform. The PiS is not a member of the EPP nor is the PiS associated to any of the resp. national parties. The PiS is instead a co-founder of the right wing, euro-sceptic Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists in the European Parliament. Probably “Christian Democratic” was supposed to describe the importance of the Catholic faith and Catholic positions for the PiS, this doesn’t make her positions “Christian Democratic” per common definition. However, a reliable source should be used to support the current claim, otherwise it should be removed HerkusMonte (talk) 09:36, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

They're not really Christian Democrats, but they're not outright "Eurosceptics" either. [2]: "For a few years, the former governing party, conservative Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice, PiS)) has been trying to capitalize on its position as a generally pro-European party that has some doubts over the need for stronger political integration within the EU." (my emphasis). Simply "Conservative" is probably the best way to describe them. Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

PiS is a fascist party

The article wrongly claims that PiS is a conservative/national conservative/christian democratic party. In fact, it has nothing to do with neither conservatism nor democracy. It is best described as fascist (economic socialism plus supremacy of the state over individual) or national socialist 85.89.170.22 (talk) 02:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

That's factually incorrect. The party adopts a similar approach to economics to western European Christian democrats: 'social market economy', etc. There is also a wing of the party that support free market economics. This is all described in the section called 'Ideology'. Please provide a reference for your assertion that that constitutes fascism. Bastin 09:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Fascism is not the right word here, national socialism is accurate. In its party programme, PiS declares being opposite to private property (it says that only small value companies should be privatized - well guess what, when Poland was under communist government, there also existed "small value private property"), praises the "national property" which it explains to be the property of the state, advocates social collectivism, etc. Actually, when it comes to economy, PiS is right now the furthest left-wing party in Poland, amongst the parties having seats in Sejm of course (leader of PiS once even recounted Edward Gierek, leader of polish communist party, as "true patriot"). Only conservative and right-wing things in PiS ideology are its views on abortion, the Church, and some propaganda babbling about patriotism, but programme of this party clearly explains what it means by patriotism. And actually it doesn't even really support the Church, PiS and its followers advocate the Church only when it's convenient for them. W.J.M. (talk) 17:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

That's just a collection of unsupported assertions: and particularly absurd ones, too. It's obviously not as free-market as PO or PJN, but if it's the most socialist party in the Sejm, how come the PiS opposed the SLD's 50% income tax rate and has promised not to increase taxes in the next Sejm? But I digress. This isn't a discussion group. This is an encyclopaedia. If you want your opinion to be included, it will only be included by virtue of also being the opinion of the balance of reliable sources. Bastin 18:13, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Well actually these "unsupported, absurd assertions" have very good source, which is PiS programme from 2009. It's available here: [3] (in polish of course). You are also wrong about the income tax - PiS voted in favor of introducing 50% rate in 2004 (only Civic Platform voted against it). W.J.M. (talk) 21:35, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

File:PiS logo.svg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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About United Poland

Ziobro's supporters, most of whom on the right-wing of the party

Ziobro supporters were the most left-wing members of Law and Justice. Jacek Kurski openely claimed to be social democrat, and Tadeusz Cymański also said that "it is not to be ashamed to be socialist".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrafQpcZkUw

http://www.konserwatyzm.pl/artykul/4572/kolor-czerwony-wcale-nie-jest-brzydki-rozmowa-z-europoslem-t

Even if their views on homosexuals or abortion are more conservative it's rather exaggerated to say that they are "from the right-wing of the party".

W.J.M. (talk) 16:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It's regrettable that people use 'right-wing' to mean this smorgasbord of policies that seem to have little connection to one another. You are, of course, correct to say that Ziobro et al are economically to the left of Kaczynski. However, Law and Justice are also considerably to the left of Civic Platform and Palikot's Movement on economics - yet it is Law and Justice that are considered more 'right-wing' (because of their views, as you note, on social issues and the EU). I agree with you that United Poland is very left-wing.

Nonetheless, I digress. It's cases such as these that show why Wikipedia has the policy of WP:V: ensuring that every statement is verified by a reliable source. Most reliable English-language sources say that Law and Justice is centre-right or right-wing. Most reliable English-language sources also say that Ziobro was from the right of the party. Hence, the article respects and reflects that. Bastin 01:58, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Both parts of the split, Law and Justice and United Poland, would be best described as national socialist. It is customary to label that as far right even though their views on the economy are far left, so the 'right wing' label is correct. KiloByte (talk) 08:05, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

What PiS Is All About

...and what it would like to be seen as.

Going by these discussions, PiS is chiefly about gayism and homophobia. I wish you guys said something more about PiS's line on more --- excuse me --- serious issues, such as health care (you say it is in favour of a state-run system, but that is hardly specific for PiS), education, old age pensions and this kind of stuff. PiS often portrays itself as the Party of the 'losers', the disenfranchised, the not-so-glamorous, the elderly and such.... Is that just an alibi or a masquerade? I understand that you are mostly rich uncommitted youngsters (or ones who have stayed youngsters) but to us old and useless PiS is, perhaps wrongly, interesting for reasons not connected with gayism and abortion. 78.49.202.26 (talk) 19:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC) wimp

party of homophobes and xenophabes 91.89.243.218 (talk) 12:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Recent PiS platform

Quite a bit has changed for PiS recently. They revealed a new platform which has considerably more socialist policies than earlier (more redistribution of wealth, state-run factories, National Employment Program, etc.) - generally a huge expansion of government. Their free-market wing has pretty much dissipated too, especially with the key pro-capitalist MP Przemysław Wipler leaving the party and announcing that he's going to work with Poland Together and the Congress of the New Right. I think this really shifts them to the left, and if one really wants to argue that they're still right-wing due to their social conservatism, then these events at least deserve a mention. Thoughts? Photon man62 (talk) 19:01, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

References? --RJFF (talk) 21:59, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

@Photon man62 Agree. Also, in Russia it is said that they are now pro-Putin. --YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 07:15, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

PiS Platform Section Issues:

What is the Law and Justice platform's position on homosexuality? Though there is a section in the page for this topic, it does not actually discuss the platform and only includes incendiary comments made by representatives. Additionally, the PiS positions on health care needs to be expanded beyond 6 words. Finally, the entire sections needs some cite able material. I would add material myself; however, I neither speak nor read Polish so any material I collect would be secondary to tertiary at best. Assuming the party has an official platform, would anyone be willing to look at it and then include primary citations? CopperPhoenix (talk) 14:19, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

The translation of the name of the party

In Polish it is: Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS). In English probably it shoud be:

Justice and Righteousness as in Bible(?). For example Jr 33:15. C12 (talk) 20:26, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Doubtful. I have never noticed party members making any connections between the bible and the name. And association with law and justice is clear — see their views regarding criminal code and their rhetoric from the early period --Wikimpan (talk) 02:22, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Article needs to be updated/expanded

Ever since PiS won the 2015 Polish parliamentary election and formed the current government, it has made a lot of changes and I have heard in the news about some of the controversies. Why doesn't this article cover PiS's activities as the ruling party since the election? --1990'sguy (talk) 15:12, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Law and Justice's ideology

Hi everybody! The Law and Justice's ideology is the Statism, Anti-communism, Euroscepticism and Anti-abortion. The Statism is the biggest ideology in the United Russia's ideology and the Law and Justice's ideology's. The party hates the liberal conservative and the islamist ideology. The party's ideology is the Statism, like the United Russia's ideology. --ViceCity343 (talk) 16:53, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

'center-right'

How are they center-right, regardless of sources their hard right at a minimum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.81.47.10 (talk) 22:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Refugees

who wrote this section? it's prejudiced and tendentious. Part "Hate crimes such as arson and physical violence have occurred in Poland" is a complete nonsense. its far from a neutral point of the view!

Why is Ideology Section Expanding?

I took a long break from monitoring this page, and it seems like the ideology section doubled in size - with a lot of overlap between labels (ex. State Interventionism and Economic Nationalism). I believe it best to reduce the number of tags; however, I'd prefer to not act unilaterally. Can we as editors to come to an agreement on cutting the section down to, say, five labels with clear pertinence to PiS?CopperPhoenix (talk) 18:35, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

+1 see also NPOV section with updated news/sources --84.226.141.191 (talk) 10:43, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Ideologies

Ok, you wanted to talk. What do you suggest as a compromise? I have no objection to the sources, just the outsized number of ideolgies. CopperPhoenix (talk) 03:29, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

• I agree that the number of ideologies in that infobox is ridiculous. Better to condense the material in the infobox and do it in article text. Drmies (talk) 03:30, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
• K. I will undo my edit so we can use the past citations. CopperPhoenix (talk) 03:37, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
• I think the article's platform section goes over much of the part's ideology; however, it looks to be pretty outdated & might need a wholesale revision. As to the infobox, how about - Polish Nationalism, National Conservatism, Christian Democracy, and Right-wing Populism. Slightly redundant, but also gives a good spread. CopperPhoenix (talk) 03:40, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
• I've warned User:Jay942942 who, as you saw, reverted you again. You, CopperPhoenix, reverted but then reverted yourself, and in addition you are discussing matters here on the talk page. Jay942942, on the other hand, seems like nothing but an edit warrior. Drmies (talk) 03:41, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
• I don't think that is justified for this page. He's made helpful edits in the past and one of his previous reverts was of a bot. I will; however, go about condensing the ideology section to 4 lines. CopperPhoenix (talk) 03:43, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I think 'euroscepticism' is important, as it is a well known stance of the party. 'Social conservatism' is also important as it represents the stance of the party on social issues, and this stance is heavily emphasized by the party. 'Economic nationalism', or some other economic descriptor is important as it differentiates PiS from the other main Polish political party, PO, which is also conservative, especially on English language Wikipedia where people will be more familiar with conservatism in an Anglosphere sense. I don't think 'state interventionism' (lots of overlap with economic nationalism, although it could be possible to have this instead of that), 'centralisation' (not really ideology), or 'anti-immigration' (not really ideology and more or less comes under national conservatism) are necessary.--Jay942942 (talk) 08:49, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

• Ok. How about we remove National Conservatism and Christian Democracy and replace them with Economic Nationalism and Social Conservatism, respectively. Also, we can add euroscepticism as well; however, it is partially contradicted in body due much of being written pre-2015 election.CopperPhoenix (talk) 18:51, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I would support keeping national conservatism and Christian democracy, with the former more important than the latter. Both are important in understanding the ideology of this party. I do not see the problem with the ideology section of the infobox being slightly longer than 4. Most infoboxes for ideologically similar parties in other European countries are longer.--Jay942942 (talk) 23:33, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Alright. I'd be fine with that. CopperPhoenix (talk) 17:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

So there was a disc and consensus to condense the ideologies to the 3-4 most relevant and delete the most overlapping ones. The section shows still 7 ideologies: Polish nationalism, National conservatism, Economic nationalism, Social conservatism, Christian democracy, Right-wing populism, Soft Euroscepticism.

I will therefore condense it per consensus to: National conservatism, Social conservatism, Christian democracy, Soft Euroscepticism --84.226.141.191 (talk) 10:53, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Here are some sources for the selected ideologies:

1. Parties & Elections
2. wyborcza
3. businessinsider
4. Euractiv

For more sources see also these wiki articles:

• List of conservative Parties by Country
• European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) in EU parliament
• plWP: PiS

--84.226.141.191 (talk) 12:24, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

@CopperPhoenix and Jay942942: Sorry to dismantle your consensus, but the references for Christian democracy are not sufficient. The German-language book by Hierlemann (2005) does not characterise PiS as a Christian-democratic party. It merely states that some PiS lawmakers view themselves as Christian democrats, but the author does not affirm this claim. The other is a (probably cherry-picked) news article by Austrian public broadcasting. PiS is a well-researched subject among political scientists, there are lots of expert books and journal articles, so why should we base the ideologic classification of this party on a random news article? Political scientists Christian Bale and Aleks Szczerbiak have published a study titled "Why is there no Christian Democracy in Poland (and why does this matter)?", where they demonstrate that PiS is not a genuinely Christian-democratic party. So, this is at least disputed and should not be affirmatively stated in the infobox and introductory sentence of the article. --RJFF (talk) 15:05, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

You reverted an edit that was done based on disc and consensus here. It is your obligation before reverting to seek consensus here instead of starting an EW. There are valid and reputable sources for different POV. So I will change it back to its previous version. Hope we can disc here according to 5P and not devalueing other contributions as "cherry-picked". --84.226.141.191 (talk) 16:21, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

There are hundreds of books and academic articles and thousands of news pieces that deal with PiS. Why do you think that this very article by the Austrian public broadcaster should be more relevant and reliable than academic studies by specialised political scientists? To me this article looks rather random, it seems to be only chosen because it mentions "Christian-democratic" in regard to PiS, while none of the political scientists who have thoroughly studied the ideology of PiS describes the party as Christian-democratic. --RJFF (talk) 16:34, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

You seem to have a very categorial POV. You did the changes without any disc and consensus. I will not comment on the "hundreds of books and academic articles and thousands of news pieces" as I have not read them. (Have you read them?). You provided 4 new sources. Thank you for that. Lets give the active users here some time to review it, discuss it and find a consensus. Actually the pl:WP and de:WP all describe PiS as conservative-national and christian-democratic. Most media and organization I know of do the same. But they might be all wrong. --84.226.141.191 (talk) 17:10, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I don’t think Christian democracy is that important relatively to what else is listed, so I suppose I’m pretty ambivalent as to what’s done with that. However, I don’t support any further condensation, because that’s not been done on the WP pages of parties with similar ideological outlooks, and I think removing anything more would take away from readers’ understanding of the party’s ideology.--Jay942942 (talk) 17:41, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

We should strive for NPOV and not to replicate ones personal POV. There was a consensus reached here. I changed it accordingly. RJFF (as first user) reverted it without any disc and consensus. Other users as Vif12vf, Wroclaw2468, RJFF, Mélencron did the same afterwards (and did not/do not particpate in disc nor consensus). Please see also admin General Ization revert here [4]. Please see below the translation of the pl:WP on PiS ideology as reference (as it is in other major WP):

• "Party ideology is a combination of social and national conservatism [16], solidarism [17], interventionism [18] and Christian democracy [19] [20]".

There are good reasons (sources/consensus) for this description?! --84.226.141.191 (talk) 20:05, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, some of the sources cited in the pl.wp article are on a lower level of quality or reliability than the ones used here, and some are cited in an inaccurate way. The reference for solidarism is a 2005 news article in Gazeta Wyborcza online edition reporting that then-prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz (PiS) claimed that PiS's program were "solidarism" — this is a mere claim by a PiS politician, not a classification by an independent expert (Solidarism is an ambiguous term anyway, and not usual in English to describe a political ideology). "Interventionism" is based on an opinion piece by a journalist for Business Insider, not an academic study either. The reference for Christian democracy is indeed an academic publication. But if you check this source, you will find that Dominika Sozańska does not classify PiS as a Christian democratic party, she only writes that "it can be said that PiS is a kind of crypto-Christian democracy" (swego rodzaju kryptochadecją) – "a kind of crypto-Christian democracy" is not the same as genuine Christian democracy. The second reference (PWN encyclopedia) states that after the desintegration of Solidarity Electoral Action, Christian-democratic circles participated in the inception of PiS, it does not state that PiS is a Christian-democratic party. PiS's programme certainly contains some elements that are similar to Christian democracy, but they are not strong enough for political scientists to consider PiS a genuinely Christian democratic party. --RJFF (talk) 21:01, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Article Overhaul

Over the next few months, I plan on overhauling the PiS article to make it more readable and it's format in line with similar pages. I plan on borrowing much of the content and citations from the polish wiki. Just a head's up. Don't be startled by any massive deletions or additions in the near future. CopperPhoenix (talk) 04:08, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

+1 also with regard to NPOV. see also here for new section with new sources/news. --84.226.141.191 (talk) 10:54, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Taking the article back from foreign hijackers

It appears that this article is heavily influenced by foreign hijackers with some apparent unhealthy interests in Polish democracy, with an aching for comparisons with other parties across Europe as if this was some kind of competition. Poles know that domestically PiS is described as centre-right and PO is described as centre-left, or more often PO as liberal and PiS as conservative, even though on some apparently necessary comparisons to Europe, both are conservative. What Western European media think is simply irrelevant, in my opinion.

No Polish media, regardless of their political alignment, would call PiS right-wing. So why is that (or even some designations as "far right") taken seriously? Indeed, the Polish article for this party does not even state "right-wing" once.

I propose we change the article to "centre-right" as outlined across Polish media and fully disregard any links from Western media. https://wypracowania24.pl/wos/3453/partie-chadeckie-definicja-charakterystyka http://naszemiasto.pl/artykul/czy-pis-jest-partia-prawicowa,4509190,art,t,id,tm.html http://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,23895905,prof-antoni-dudek-platforma-przegrywa-z-pis-walke-o-centroprawice.html?disableRedirects=true https://dorzeczy.pl/kraj/59579/PiS-daleko-od-prawicy.html http://www.newsweek.pl/polska/wyniki-sondazy-wyborczych-kto-jet-w-polsce-prawica-i-lewica,artykuly,365729,1.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by RevolutionizeSeven (talk • contribs) 16:30, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

no opposition till now, consensus reached. I will adapt it accordingly. --194.230.193.232 (talk) 00:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Elections - Regional assemblies 2018

Regional assemblies 2018 News: TVP: PiS triumphs in Polish local elections 21.10.2018

• An exit poll indicates that Poland’s conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party gained the most votes in Sunday’s local government elections, public broadcaster TVP reported.
  • In Poland’s most important electoral test since Law and Justice came to power in the parliamentary elections of late 2015, the party on Sunday gained 32.3 percent of the vote in elections to regional assemblies, according to an exit poll.
  • The Civic Coalition, an alliance between the Civic Platform (PO) and Nowoczesna (Modern) parties, came second with 24.7 percent of the regional assemblies vote, the poll found.
  • The Polish People's Party (PSL), which is strong in rural areas, came third on 16.6 percent, according to the survey by pollster Ipsos.
  • Turnout at 5pm on Sunday stood at 41.65 percent, officials said.

I would like to add this to the section Regional assemblies 2018 - ok? --0e7s (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Here is a link to the winning parties by "Staates" Voivodeships of Poland: Elections 2018 and Elections 2014 --84.226.141.191 (talk) 09:54, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

News

Here are some recent news:

1. TVN24
2. Radio Wroclaw
3. Dziennik
4. Dziennik

--84.226.141.191 (talk) 12:11, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Political Position

Political position per disc and consensus is "Centre-right". See discs sections above and Political spectrum. --84.226.141.191 (talk) 09:46, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

The cited references (Szczerbiak, Aleks (2012), Poland Within the European Union: New awkward partner or new heart of Europe?, Routledge, pp. 1, 13; Porter-Szűcs, Brian (2011), Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland, Oxford University Press, p. 201) describe PiS as right-wing. Contents are not determined by a vote of users but by reliable sources. I have no doubt that Szczerbiak's and Porter-Szűcs' publications are reliable. Moreover the argument that only foreigners view PiS as right-wing is not only irrelevant but also untrue, as Szczerbiak is a Pole. --RJFF (talk) 12:07, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Please refer to [5] in the disc on Ideology. Before making changes to the article please review the talk page, the provided sources and seek consensus. You might know that there are around 40 mio Poles. I can assure you based on experience that there is a broad spectrum of political opinions in Poland and that Poles like to intensively discuss on politics. --84.226.141.191 (talk) 17:21, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

You are free to provide reliable sources of political scientists who disagree with the classification of PiS as right-wing and rather consider the party to be centre-right. These sources need to be on the same level of quality as the ones I have presented: academic studies and books by political scientists, not random news articles. If such reliable sources do exist, we may well change the position in the political spectrum to "centre-right to right-wing". If these sources do not exist, you will have to accept the right-wing classification based on the sources I have provided. That is the principle of verifiability. --RJFF (talk) 20:13, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Please see below for an excerpt of verified sources for conservative/centre-right (including scientific/political studies). According to WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE I will change it to "centre-right". --ObserverEU (talk) 22:54, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Centre-right

PiS political position is described across all major sources by the overwhelming majority as "Conservative" = centre-rigth vs. right-wing It includes Media of all types: public/private & conservative/left-wing/far-left & small/big & national/international

• all key articles in pl:WP, en:WP, gb:WP, deWP, it:WP
• PiS self-description / governments / institutional organizations
• science
• media Poland
• media Europe
• media International / English
• major press agancies

Please see below an excerpt of available sources for "conservative PiS". I will change it in the article accordingly. --ObserverEU (talk) 22:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The 'liberal-conservative' label in the TVN article refers to PO, not PiS. --RevivesDarks (talk) 23:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Thnx, replaced it with an article from Rzeczpospolita - 2nd largest PL newspaper [6]. --ObserverEU (talk) 23:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia key articles

• enWP: list of conservative parties Poland
• enWP: ECRM EU parties
• plWP: PiS
• Liste konservativer Parteien

Governments / Institutions

• PiS is a member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) in the European Parlament
• PiS Website conservative]
• National Electoral Commission PiS as national conservatism, social conservatism
• ewbory.eu national conservative, christian democratic
• BBC: Polish President Andrzej Duda Interview
• Norwegian Centre for Research Data PiS as Christian Democrat: PiS is a conservative political party

--ObserverEU (talk) 06:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Science

• Institute of International Relations, University of Warsaw conservative
• KAS: Stability in Instability national conservative
• KAS: International Reports national conservative
• FNS (multiple studies) national conservative
• A loveless marriage: The Conservatives and the European People's Party social conservatism, economic nationalism
• EU Membership and the Polish Party System conservative
• Whither Euroscepticism conservative p.4
• Democraticaudit social conservative
• Poland: Law and Justice for All? conservative, nationalist
• The 2011 Elections in Poland: Defining a New Cleavage conservative p.3
• Poland's conservative turn and the role of the European Union Catholic-conservative PiS
• The Polish Parliament and EU Affairs conservative right
• A conservative convergence? The differences and similarities of the conservative right in the Czech Republic and Poland conservative
• Bale 2010 socially conservative

Media Poland

• Radio Poland: conservative PiS
• Onet: conservative
• Wyborcza: conservative
• Rzeczpospolita: conservative
• TVN: Konserwatywna
• Polska Times: conservative
• Wyborcza: PiS social conservatism, solidarity

--ObserverEU (talk) 23:58, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Media EU

• ARD (Public Television): conservative
• ZDF (Public TV Germany): conservative
• 3SAT (Public TV Germany): national-conservative
• ORF (Public TV Austria): conservative
• SRF (Public TV Switzerland): national-conservative
• DLF (German Broadcasting) konservativ
• WELT (conservative) erzkonservativer Regierungspartei Recht und Gerechtigkeit (PiS)
• Cicero (small): national-conservative
• WELT (conservative): national conservative
• Spiegel (left-wing): national conservative
• ND (far-left): konservative Regierungspartei PiS
• Krone Austria: Die konservative PiS
• nzz Switzerland national conservative
• Aftenposten Norway: conservative

Media International / english

• BBC: Conservative PiS supporters marching in Warsaw
• MSN: conservative
• CBC CAN: conservative
• US News: conservative
• business insider: Poland's governing conservatives seek to control Supreme Court
• businessinsider PL: conservative
• Washington Post government of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS)
• Euractiv conservative

Major Press Agency

Reuters, AP, AFP: more than 4 thousand news for „conservative PiS“ here an excerpt:

• Reuters conservative PiS
• Reuters conservative PiS
• Reuters economically left-leaning party with a conservative social agenda

--ObserverEU (talk) 22:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

None of those sources say that PiS is *not* nationalist or right-wing populist. Being conservative or national conservative does not automatically mean a party is not nationalist or right-wing populist. Here are sources that say they are nationalist (beyond what is already on the article page):

• https://www.timesofisrael.com/catholic-leaders-rap-polands-ruling-party-for-anti-migrant-policies/
• https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-poland-politics-farright-analysis/polands-far-right-opportunity-and-threat-for-ruling-pis-idUKKBN1ES0BO
• https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-poland/poland-adopts-new-law-to-accelerate-changes-in-supreme-court-idUKKBN1KE2DQ
• https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-poland-politics-jaki/polish-minister-sees-catharsis-in-new-holocaust-law-idUKKCN1G518Q
• https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-israel-poland/poland-backs-down-on-holocaust-law-moves-to-end-jail-terms-idUKKBN1JN0SI
• https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwmeka/poland-purge-supreme-court-malgorzata-gersdorf
• https://euobserver.com/political/142077
• https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43795166
• https://www.apnews.com/1a1dca9635b64c6e9981a9aed2f61e84
• https://www.wsj.com/articles/polands-new-nationalist-rulers-are-erasing-lech-walesa-from-history-1516636420
• https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/world/europe/poland-courts.html
• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/world/europe/poland-courts-law-and-justice-party.html

--Jay942942 (talk) 15:12, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Thnx for these additional news as sources. I will review them. It seems to me normal that on a political party there will be a wide diversity of opinions/news. There are more than 4.000 news from the 3 major press agancies only stating "conservative PiS". My understanding is that we strive for neutral point of view and be balanced based on verfified sources. Please review the talk page and especially the provided evidence summarized here PiS#Centre-right. --ObserverEU (talk) 16:50, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

No one disputes that PiS is conservative. It was unnecessary to list dozens of sources for the fact that PiS is conservative. But you seem to equal conservative=centre-right which is undue. Conservative and centre-right are not completely synonymous. Conservative parties may as well be on the right-wing of the political spectrum. Several of the academic sources I cited above explicitly describe PiS as a "right-wing conservative party". So your claim — sources describe PiS as conservative, so its position must be centre-right – is simply invalid. If you want to add centre-right to the position field of the infobox, you will have to cite sources that explicitly describe PiS as a centre-right party, otherwise your claim would be without a reliable source and therefore not verifiable. And in any case, you cannot completely remove the "right-wing" label, because it is definitely supported with references to several reputable academic publications. If different political scientists argued whether it is centre-right or right-wing, we might include both labels in the infobox, but until now I only see several high-quality references for right-wing and none for centre-right. --RJFF (talk) 23:54, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

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• PiS Teillogo.svg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:36, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Homophobia

The entire, long standing section, on Homophobia has been removed with a false edit summary that I added it (I did expand). We do not closet LGBT issues into an "LGBT rights" article - but rather cover where relevant. Homophobia has been a major party plank since inception, and in the 2019 elections it is the party's main platform issue, A vast number of RSes, international coverage, have been covering the homophibic incitement in the past few months. We follow sources and this is clearly DUE, and probably should be in the lead as well.Icewhiz (talk) 05:50, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Multiple editors are challenging you. You mass inserting this text into numerous articles including totally unrelated, no go zones for example. The topic is UNDUE for a general level article such as this one and belongs to LGTB rights in Poland. Get consensus. GizzyCatBella (talk) 05:58, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

No, you and an IP who made a personal attack are challenging this. Other articles are unrelated. Please articulate your objection using Wikipedia policies and employing reliable sources - a vast number of which cover the homophobia plank of the platform here for a long period.Icewhiz (talk) 06:02, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

There is no consensus to include this info into this particular generic article about the political party. You are being challenged by 2 people here and more people on other articles you were mass inserting this text. You need to get a consensus first. GizzyCatBella (talk) 06:10, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

There is no consensus to remove the setion which has been in this article for a decade+. Furthermore, saying no-consensus is WP:IJDLI - you need to articulate why we shouldn't include the main issue this party has received coverage for in the past several months. A topic subject of human rights reports dating back a decade.Icewhiz (talk) 06:16, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Gay rights section has been restored to the version that "was the for a decade+”. There is no consensus for your changes so far. You are being challenged by two people. Get consensus if you want to add a controversial material into a generic article about the political party. GizzyCatBella (talk) 06:30, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

• @Icewhiz: Unfortunately, your edits sound WP:TENDENTIOUS. You have cherry-picked a few sources, mostly those aligned with the competing political party, that described isolated incidents or a 2005 media interview, and you are trying to present them as the party's official policy line. As to the Ikea incident, for example, you conveniently did not mention that the investigation found nothing. As you are unable to stick to NPOV in this article, I suggest you refrain from editing it. — kashmīrī ^TALK 06:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you for your kind words, however they should be directed to the editor of the Washington Post, the cited source, which does not mention the case being closed - it seems what is significant here is a PiS government minister ordering an investigation of an employer who fired a homophobic employee. On Wikipedia we generally follow mainstream sources, such as the Washington Post, who are covering the recent whipping up of homophobia by PiS at quite some length. We don't have to cover Ikea (just a particular example) - but the official party line (at least per mainstream sources) in the 2019 is exclusion of LGBT.Icewhiz (talk) 07:16, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

  To be clear, I am not questioning the fact that PiS has been whipping up homophobia; it has. But I favour being more nuanced here. As a politician said, "What really matters in politics are actions, not words or small incidents." Homophobia has never been an official party line for PiS, and no legislative changes taht would discriminate against the LGBT community have been proposed in Poland. Also, what is not being sufficiently stressed IMHO is the influence of the Catholic Church, closely aligned with the ruling party, on Polish homophobia - vide the recent statements by bishop Jedraszewski. As to the Ikea case, a government inspection has reported that Ikea was within their right to terminate employment of that particular employee. — kashmīrī ^TALK 07:43, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

  I agree the Church is highly relevant to homophobia in Poland (and that PiS is pro-Church or connected) - however this page is on PiS. @Kashmiri: - how about you craft text here on the position and rhetoric as of 2019?Icewhiz (talk) 08:08, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

References

"Far right"

PiS is not a Far-right party. There is no evidence of the government pushing through any sort of systemic crackdown on minorities or planning to leave the European Union. Konfederacja is a Polish party that is undisputably far right. Poland is a member of the European Union, and market rules must be followed. Communism is illegal here in Poland. PiS is not a "nationalist" or Anti-EU party either. Poland does not seek to destroy the union, they just have deep divisions with EU elites on courts, climate, and forced migration. None of this is outside of any sort of democratic parameters. accept the rules of the single market and do not oppose free trade agreements, so you can throw out the "economic nationalist" part. I don't agree with Poland's ruling party on many things, but this is taking it to extremes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.11.32.101 (talk) 20:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@78.11.32.101:
I suggest you to read WP:POINT. After reading it I wish you could know why your edit is reverting. Jeff6045 22:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

What I find problematic is that there are still sources that describe the party as center-right, which would make "Right-wing" the best way to balance the variety of positions on the political spectrum assigned to Law and Justice. Ezhao02 (talk) 15:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I concur. It should be "right wing" because that's what the party is in a Polish sense. Yes it's far more right wing, than say, the Conservative Party in the UK but on a Polish level it's hardly far-right. Fidesz is also "far-right" for some reason, I'd personally argue that it's not these parties that moved right, but the worldwide political environment that moved left. "Right wing" would be a balanced compromise in my opinion, yes some foreign sources say it's far-right, but notice how it's mostly foreign sources, from countries which moved left. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 18:07, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. Plenty of sources describe PiS as far-right. In the absolute sense it is far-right, whipping up hate against minorities and LGBT. MozeTak (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

PSL is also against gay marriage yet somehow they're "center-center-right" and note how literally all the sources for "far right" are foreign NOT domestic, because from a Polish perspective putting them in the "far right" category makes no sense, and the only Polish sources that do that are known for being radically left wing by Polish standards. You can't compare Polish right wing politics to for instance, British right wing politics. The countries are completely different from a political sense. I'd also like to add that United Russia, of all parties is just "right wing". There is no way PiS is more right wing than Putin's party. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 19:15, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia is supposed to use an international perspective. MozeTak (talk) 20:05, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

yet there are plenty are plenty of Polish sources and writing "far right" doesn't give a good picture of the Polish political scene to someone who isn't "in" the topic, not too mention that the article itself partially debunks the "far right" label (see the nationalism section). I think writing "right wing, far right (alleged)" would be the best compromise. Or get rid of the left-wing axis entirely and just use the ideologies so the reader can make up his own mind, the articles on the US Democrats and Republicans don't have the right-left designation, and putting a party on an axis is very subjective. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 20:14, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I suggest to be carefully with using the label "far-right". Of course they are anti-LGBT but this is no reason for being far-right instead of right-wing. You also have to mention that they are anti-LGBT in their speeches but they don't do any direct actions against the LGBT community. A far-right party would introduce punishments (e.g. jail penalties) for LGBT actions but the PiS is far away from this as of today. I think I will change the infobox label "right-wing to far-right" to "right-wing with far-right factions" (just like in the article about the Japanese LDP). Rotesdiadem (talk) 12:29, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, the far-right wiki article reads: "Used to describe the historical experiences of fascism and Nazism,[5] it today includes neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, Third Position, the alt-right, white nationalism[6] and other ideologies or organizations that feature ultranationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, racist, anti-communist, or reactionary views.[7] These can lead to oppression, violence, forced assimilation, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide against groups of people based on their supposed inferiority, or their perceived threat to the native ethnic group,[8][9] nation, state,[10] national religion, dominant culture or ultraconservative traditional social institutions.[11]" while in the Law and Justice article under "nationalism" it reads "Despite being labeled by many former Western Bloc States as a "nationalist" party, PiS' leadership constantly criticizes being offered such label. During the 2008 Polish Independence Day celebrations, Lech Kaczyński said in his speech during the visit to the city of Elbląg that "the state is a great value, and attachment to the state, to one's fatherland, we call patriotism - beware of the word nationalism, as nationalism is evil!"[89] On the same day during the celebrations in Warsaw, L. Kaczyński again stated: "patriotism doesn't equal nationalism."[90] In 2011, Jarosław Kaczyński criticized pre-war Polish nationalism for "its intellectual, political and moral failure" by emphasising that the movement "did not know how to deal with and solve the problems of Polish minorities."[91] Both Kaczyńskis twins look up for inspirations to the pre-war Sanacja movement with its leader Józef Piłsudski, in contrast to the nationalist Endecja that was led by Piłsudski's political archrival, Roman Dmowski. In February 2016, politician Paweł Kowal called Jarosław Kaczyński a "centre-right politician" who "just like Piłsudski before the war, he stopped the raise of nationalism in Poland at the time when such ideology clearly gains politically in Western Europe" . Pretty contradictory. I think we should just remove the axis, since there effectively 2 different realities now if you look at what news organization say about Poland, and if the wiki's own definition of "far-right politics" is anything to go by, "far-right" is a huge stretch. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 21:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I would support reverting back to "right-wing" for PiS. A similar consensus was reached for India's BJP, which had sources describing it as both "centre-right" and "far-right" as well as "right-wing". I would also be okay with the consensus approach taken on the LDP page, but that one is messier. Here are sources describing PiS as "centre-right".--Jay942942 (talk) 00:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

The party is far right, whether we like it or not. Holding racist, xenophobic, anti-Arab, anti-Black, anti-Muslim speeches is not seen by the overwhelming majority of medias, academics/scholars and world public opinion as acceptable. Not only in speeches but also in practice they refuse the entry of Arabs, Blacks, Muslims in Poland on the basis of prejudices / facies but welcome Catholic Filipinos because their faith is the same as that of "native Poles", which it's a huge example of discrimination. Rejecting people because they do not have the same skin color, the same religion is labeled as far right. Les Républicains French party of François Fillon, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet or Alain Juppé is centre-right or "moderate rght-wing". Today the world is multicultural and cosmopolitan, it is a fact even if it hurts the chauvinism of certain governments (Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Donald Trump etc.). Everyone has seen the consequences of nationalism in Europe over the past century. --Laypso (talk) 12:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Need to be extremely cautious to avoid WP:CHERRY, especially from the 2015-2016 election period. Later reporting seems to consistently avoid the "far right" label, so readily used in 2016, instead stressing PiS's "left-inspired" economic policies[7][8][9][10]. All in all, newer sources indicated that slapping a "far right" label to PiS would be factually incorrect. — kashmīrī ^TALK 10:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

References

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Infobox political position

@ObserverEU:, @78.11.32.101:, @Ezhao02:, @Jeff6045:, @Tomasz Magierowski:, @MozeTak:, @Rotesdiadem:, @Kashmiri:, @RJFF:, @5.81.47.10:

There are sources describing this party as "centre-right", "right-wing" and "far-right". Currently, the infobox political position says "right-wing to far-right". I would like to gauge support for a change in the position to either "Centre-right to right-wing with far-right factions", as was done on the Liberal Democratic Party (Japan) page when a similar dilemma arose, or simply "Right-wing" as the middle ground between "centre-right and "far right", as was done on the Bharatiya Janata Party page. Both of these changes have been previously suggested on this talk page as potential new consensus positions.

Which of the following three political positions is best suited for this article's infobox?

• Right-wing to far-right
• Centre-right to right-wing with far-right factions
• Right-wing

I think "Right-wing" is best, since it is cleaner than the second option. However, unlike the status quo, it allows readers to more easily make a distinction with Confederation Liberty and Independence, United Poland and other significant movements in the country that are further to the right of PiS without being purely "far-right". --Jay942942 (talk) 15:06, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I believe – and I am sure that many will agree – that the early 20th century classification of political views into "left-wing", "centre" and "right-wing" no longer applies to modern political parties, not only in Europe. PiS is just one example of a party that does not fit this classification - has progressive ("left-wing") economic policies (e.g., regarding economic egality, redistribution, economic safety), conservative (but not ultraconservative, yet still "right-wing") social policies, nationalistic rhetorics (e.g., re. migration) and fairly nondistinct views re. Poland's EU membership (prefer maintain status quo). This is definitely not what is commonly termed as "far right" of the AfD or National Front type.

Also, I am not really sure of the "far right faction". I might be wrong but I don't think anything of this type exists within PiS, at least since Antoni Macierewicz has been sidelined. Most of the fiercely right-wing rhetorics has been coming from politicians linked to United Poland. But don't quote me on that – it would be good to find sources to confirm.

So, as to your proposals, I am not in favour at all of the left/right divide (prefer "conservative", "progressive", "liberal" etc.). But given that PiS evolved from Porozumienie Centrum, which as its name implies was a centrist party, the second of your three options would be most acceptable to me. — kashmīrī ^TALK 16:29, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

PiS is inherently difficult to place on the left-right political spectrum due to its leftish economic policies. I think right-wing is the best descriptor we can use as a balance between the sources that exist; besides, Law and Justice isn't really "far-right" in from a Polish perspective. Ezhao02 (talk) 17:52, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I strongly advocate to remove the far-right label in the infobox since it mostly is a description evolved from currently occuring polarized debates in media and society. From a point of view of political science, far-right does not fit to the PiS. I support the argument of Jay942942 that the description "Right-wing to far-right" looks like the PiS is in the same position like Confederation Liberty and Independence for example which is completely inappropriate because a label as radical as far-right implies a position (at least partly) outside the current constitutional framework of the state. The PiS is far away from "revolution-like actions" to fulfill their policies (their behavior is more statesmanlike than contrary to the current liberal democratic state system which would be typical for a far-right party). For more arguments why it is important to show the differences between the truly far-right Confederation Liberty and Independence (for example) and the right-wing PiS, please look here: [11]. I also have to say that I would disagree with a "centre-right" label because the conservative views are too strong for that. They are too socially conservative to name them "centre-right" especially because their strongly pro-Catholic politics (against abortion and homosexuality...). This grade is not typical for an European centre-right party and that is why the right-wing label would fit to the PiS especially because their socially very conservative views (Social politics are another reason why they are not far-right, the truly far-right Confederation Liberty and Independence leader Korwin-Mikke stated once that he is against the right for women to vote and in favor of death penalty. Views that don't occur in the PiS. [12] (German source)). In my opinion, it is important to label parties with a political position because it would be more easy for readers to get a quick overview. The argument that the PiS program incules left-wing policies is weak because even in economic questions, they are mostly economically liberal (nothing that leads away from right-wing). Of course, they sometimes include left-leaning policies like economic equality, but in reality that is nothing special for a right-wing populist party or populist party in general.To conclude, I recommend to change the political position to right-wing. (I would also agree to "right-wing with far-right factions" instead of the current "right-wing to far-right" but "right-wing" would be the best, I think.) --Rotesdiadem (talk) 23:12, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Right-wing to far-right. For the reason mentionned above. Holding strong xenophobic, racist speeches and pursuing discriminatory policies against minorities aren't ethically legitimate, especially in the 21st century. --Laypso (talk) 12:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Can you give examples of such policies? — kashmīrī ^TALK 16:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

The Polish government refuses refugees from African and Arab/Muslims countries, breaking EU and international rules/laws : 1, 2, 3. But they accept Catholic Filipinos because their faith is the same as that of "native Poles". It's a discriminatory policy based on skin color/religion, if these Filipinos had been Muslim, the Polish government would not have welcomed them. Some party's members assimilate during electoral campaign immigration to terrorism and migrants to people who bring cholera (on the top of the article, the article is in French language). --Laypso (talk) 18:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

You might be interested in thinking what the pro Confederation people have to say about that... https://kresy.pl/wydarzenia/tani-i-wytrzymali-jak-w-polsce-reklamuje-sie-pracownikow-z-bangladeszu/ <especially key here is Bosak and Winnicki's comments at the end of the article. T Magierowski (talk) 19:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

A far-right party would not let any non-Polish people to enter Poland. It's not far-right that they only let enter Catholic Filipinos. --Rotesdiadem (talk) 22:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@Rotesdiadem: Are you being serious? That strikes me as a very… naive view of how fascism works. Have you never read the famous Niemöller quote? Also: Creeping normality. Robby.is.on (talk) 06:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

What about muslim Bangladeshis? And restriction of immigration ain't fascism. The "creeping normality" ain't fascism, yet the definition of fascism which is now anything remotely right-wing. T Magierowski (talk) 09:52, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, legal immigration to Poland from Muslim countries has increased under PiS. Immigration statistics for most Muslim countries show between twofold and tenfold increase in 2019 compared to 2014: Afghanistan 291 immigrants in 2019 vs 105 in 2014, Azerbaijan 1231 vs 182, Bangladesh 1509 vs 183, Iran 583 vs 172, Iraq 1004 vs 322, Palestine 120 vs 58, Pakistan 428 vs 120, Saudi Arabia 555 vs 180, and so on, very consistently. Also, asylum laws do not discriminate based on religion. We see that the argument that PiS blocks Muslim migration to Poland is utter bollocks. I suggest we agree whether Wikipedia is to offer encylopaedic information, based on hard data, or a synthesis of media coverage. — kashmīrī ^TALK 20:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Right-wing would be best in my opinion. More right wing than center-right yet no where near close to far-right, especially when we are talking about Polish politics (the current identification puts them on the same level as Konfederacja, as other people mentioned, which is very misleading.) I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_and_Justice#Nationalism and the sources mentioned there are a very good summary of why PiS shouldn't be labelled far-right. Tomasz Magierowski (talk) 13:50, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

There is no universal political spectrum. The position of a party is always relative to the political spectrum of its respective country. In Poland, PiS is considered a mainstream party, even if some of the party's positions would be considered extreme in other countries. Moreover, "centre-right", "right-wing" and "far-right" are not fixed, mutually exclusive points on the political spectrum, "right-wing" can be used as an umbrella term encompassing a range of political views, including more moderate and more radical variants. Therefore, I think right-wing is sufficient to roughly describe PiS' position in the infobox. Details of the party's ideology and intra-party factions belong in the article's body and should be described in prose, not in catchwords. --RJFF (talk) 08:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Journalists are not experts in determining a political party's position. Political scientists are. Academic sources by political scientists should be preferred over journalistic ones. All references for "far-right" are news articles by journalists, none of them is an academic source. Yet, there are loads of academic publications (even in English) about PiS. But I have never seen that a political scientist who specialises in political parties or the political system of Poland categorised PiS as a far-right party. Honestly, it looks like someone just googled for Law and Justice + Poland + far-right rather than consulting expert literature on the topic. --RJFF (talk) 08:29, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

References