Draft:March of a Thousand Robes

The March of a Thousand Robes was held in Warsaw, Poland, on January 11th, 2020.

The purpose of the march was to advocate for the Rule of Law and an independent judiciary.

Background
The march was organized by Iustitia, the national association of judges of Poland, but involved many other civil society organizations, which formed an alliance for democracy and human rights that came together under the banner of Judicial Independence.

Although planned to be a gathering of judges and jurists in general, the march rapidly gained the adhesion of thousands of anonymous Polish citizens assembled in the streets of Warsaw. Starting at the Supreme Court of Poland, the March ended in front of the Polish Parliament, where the speeches were made.

The march was the largest public rally of members of the judiciary, at least in Europe. Actually, judges from 26 countries (a footnote mentioning all the countries) converged to the capital of Poland to publicly showing solidarity and togetherness with the Polish judges, who were fighting, under difficult conditions, to maintain their threatened independence.

Never happened that so many countries, so many judiciaries from so diverse legal cultures, converge, on a single day, to a single place, with such a clear purpose: to uphold Judicial Independence; to affirm a total commitment for Democracy and to present solidarity to the courageous Polish colleagues.

Under the always mentioned sentence that “judges have spoken”, the March was a decisive moment to reinforce the fight of Polish judges to continue to safeguard their impartiality and independence.

This impressive episode of the dramatic struggle for the Rule of Law in the very heart of European Union became a symbol of the independence of the courts worldwide. Because of this powerful impact and wide repercussion, a petition signed by jurists all over the world started a civil movement to name January 11th as the International Day for Judicial Independence.