The Rule of Law as a Postcolonial Relic: The Narrative of the Polish Right

Abstract

The article discusses the uses of the postcolonial framing by Prawo i Sprawiedliwość based on an analysis of its 2019 electoral agenda. The main argument is that the postcolonial framing is crucial for the understanding of the national-conservative variant of the critique of the rule of law as exercised by PiS. Five components of the postcolonial framing used in the Agenda are analysed: creolisation of elites (exemplified by the image of Polish judiciary as a postcolonial elite agents of self-colonization); mimicry (the concern for family and marriage, and the approach to LGBTIQ rights); hybridity (illustrated by the critique of the introduction of the rule of law in Poland); subalternity (exemplified by the loss of state sovereignty and international standing as a result of self-colonization of Poland in the EU); and voicelesness (connected with the concern with multilinguistic communication, particularly in international organisations). An analysis of how these five themes occur in the Agenda 2019 leads towards a summary of the PiS’ revisionist view of the postcommunist transformation. In the conclusion, the likely further development of Polish legal order towards internal colonization is indicated.