(CNN)Marching by candlelight, demonstrators poured into streets across Poland to protest what some lament as the impending death of democracy in the country.
Tens of thousands of Poles gathered outside the presidential palace in Warsaw on Thursday evening, just hours after the lower house of Parliament passed a bill that would give the populist government the power to push all of the country's Supreme Court judges into retirement.
The government-controlled upper house of Parliament could vote on the bill as soon as Friday.