Committee for the Defence of Democracy
The Committee for the Defence of Democracy, CDD (, "KOD") is a Polish-born civic organization and NGO which among its goals includes promoting the European values, especially democracy, rule of law, and human rights. It was 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 declares its independence of any political parties and that it has no intention to transform into one. 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. Background. KOD was formed after Law and Justice won parliament election. In opposition to several actions taken by the governing party, Law and Justice (, 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. Activity. On 26 November 2015, the  members of KOD wrote an open letter entitled "A Letter of the Citizens of the Constitutional State to Andrzej Duda, the President of Poland" asking him to swear in three of the five judges to the Constitutional Court. KOD argued that those three, although not the other two, were duly elected by the previous parliament. As the disagreements between the governing party and the Constitutional Court continued, KOD called for protests against what it perceives as a breach of the Constitution in violation of democratic norms and the constitutional separation of powers between the legislature, executive branch, and judiciary. The  former leader, Mateusz Kijowski, left the organisation in 2017 after being accused of appropriating 121 thousand złoty. Most of the protests in Poland are accompanied by smaller protests by KOD cells in most European capitals and around the world, notably in Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin and the USA. In December 2019, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the Committee for the Defence of Democracy organized protests throughout Poland against the Polish judicial disciplinary panel law. Leadership. The original leader was Mateusz Kijowski (2015-2017). In September 2020, was re-elected as the head of KOD. Committee for the Defence