Committee for the Defence of Democracy
The KOD logo
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| Abbreviation | KOD |
|---|---|
| Formation | 2015 |
| Legal status | Association |
| Headquarters | Warsaw (Poland), Brussels (International) |
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Region served
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Country-wide, International |
| Affiliations | KOD International, KOD UK, KOD Polonia USA |
| Website |
kod |
The Committee for the Defence of Democracy (Polish: Komitet Obrony Demokracji, KOD) is a Polish-born civic organization and NGO promoting European values, especially democracy, rule of law and human rights, founded in November 2015 by a group of citizens including Mateusz Kijowski, as a result of, and triggered by, the Polish constitutional crisis, 2015. The organization is independent of any political parties and has declared that it has no intention to transform into one, but its events and actions are supported by the liberal opposition including the Nowoczesna (Modern) and Civic Platform (PO) parties. It is opposed to the actions of the government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party.
KOD has its Polish headquarters in Warsaw and international office in Brussels (KOD International), with chapters and affiliated associations around Europe, in North America, Asia and Australia.
The organization was awarded the 2016 European Citizens' Prize by the European Parliament for defending fundamental rights and democracy.
KOD was formed after Law and Justice won parliament election. In opposition to several actions taken by the governing party, Law and Justice (Polish: Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS), which in October 2015 became the first party in post-communist Polish history to control an absolute majority of the seats in the Polish Parliament, with a PiS-backed candidate, Andrzej Duda, winning the presidential elections just a few months earlier. The primary impetus for the formation of KOD was the Parliament’s enactment of a law on 26 November 2015 purporting to invalidate the prior Government’s appointment of five judges to the Polish Constitutional Court and the nomination of new PiS-affiliated judges to replace them. Since then the organisation has opposed and reacted to any actions taken by the government or President Andrzej Duda which were deemed unlawful, undermining democracy, limiting civil liberties or going against European principles.
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