Who voted them in? If you say that the people voted them in, it's painful, but it is the politics of the region. One of the terrifying parts of democracy is that the people have the right to vote for their leaders, including leaders who will actively undermine their own democracy, and they can be content with that because that's what they wanted. In which case, democracy has done what the people wanted, by ruining democracy.
It's kind of like Jury Nullification, where Juries do not strictly need to vote on the merits of whether a person is guilty or innocent, but can vote against the law and know the law can't punish jurors for a "wrong judgement". Judges hate that loophole but know it's a necessary part of democracy. Similarly, the ability of a democratic people to vote to end democracy is democracy working even though it is also an awful necessary loophole.
And if you say that we must take effort to prevent a democratic people, legally speaking, from democratically voting to end democracy, you are now technically anti-democratic. That's a weird place to be.
Democracy depends on a strong free press and independent courts. A strong free press is not just one part of a country’s businesses, it is quite literally the fourth pillar of democracy.
Juries are not a thing in most countries that are generally considered democracies, so jury nullification can't be all that neccesary.
It’s not even like the EU has big expectations of Poland. The sticking point now is an independent judiciary and free press. Seriously, it’s embarrassing that Poland has to be strong armed into these!
In any case, Poland freely signed up to these commitments, it’s just bad form to eke out of them like this. Not to mention the actual damage politically-corrupted courts do to the people and economy in Poland.