Recent political attacks that have destabilized the Polish judiciary and democracy serve as a warning as the U.S. grapples with an uptick in partisan attacks that also threaten to undermine judicial independence, according to jurists on an American Bar Association panel on Friday.

In Poland, the ruling political party, Law and Justice, has dismantled a number of institutions and laws that ensured the courts remain independent from the executive and legislative branches of government, and have begun to put supporters of their party on the bench while pushing others out, said Dariusz Mazur, a judge on a criminal court in Poland.

"It can be very dangerous for preserving democracy in Poland. Not only the independence of the courts but free elections in Poland, which are under the control of the Supreme Court," Judge Mazur said on the panel, which was presented as part of the ABA's virtual annual meeting Friday.

In recent years there have also been "troubling assaults" on the independence of the U.S. judiciary, according to Chief Justice Nathan Hecht of the Supreme Court of Texas.

Some examples of that, he said, include questions from legislators during federal judges' confirmation hearings that are aimed at determining whether a judge will decide one way or another on particular issues, as well as the criticism from the executive branch and others of judges' decisions simply because they disagree with them politically.

Criticizing a judge based on a nuanced interpretation of the law is one thing, but simply attacking them because one does not like the outcome of their decision-making process is harmful to the administration of justice and the rule of law, Justice Hecht said.

"Yes, judges need to be held accountable and they can be criticized. But their independence has to be preserved through that so that they can be depended on to follow the rule of law," he said.

According to former Iowa Supreme Court Justice Marsha Ternus, one example in the U.S. of a partisan attack on members of the judiciary happened to her 10 years ago.

Her court decided unanimously in 2009 that an Iowa law prohibiting same-sex marriage violated the state's constitution. Soon after that, three of the court's justices were up for retention elections and faced significant attacks by special interest groups.

"We were just doing our job when we decided [the case]," Ternus said. "We didn't think about what the consequences would be to us. We focused on our oath of office and what we were on the bench to do and that was to decide cases based on the law."

The special interest groups "swooped in," she said, and ran ads on television criticizing the justices as stepping outside constitutional boundaries, calling them "activist, liberal judges" who had become political and were legislating from the bench.

None of the three won their retention election campaigns.

"This attack on the courts is an existential threat on democracy," Ternus said of the example in Iowa and of other examples of similar efforts to undermine judge's decisions due to political disagreement with their outcomes.

She said that as lawyers, members of the profession have an opportunity and responsibility to educate others on civics, the rule of law and judicial independence. And they can lead by example by accepting losses in court with grace, she added.

"We have to take responsibility that sometimes as lawyers we lose a case, and it's not because the judge is biased or has a certain point of view. We have to, as lawyers, show we respect judicial independence, we respect the rule of law, and we accept losses," Ternus said.

Have a story idea for Access to Justice? Reach us at accesstojustice@law360.com.

--Editing by Katherine Rautenberg.