Former Polish minister starts hunger strike in prison after arrest in presidential palace

Poland’s former interior minister Mariusz Kaminski has gone on hunger strike after he was arrested in Warsaw’s presidential palace, where he had sought refuge, and was imprisoned on Wednesday for abuse of power.

President Andrzej Duda, whose 2015 pardon of the former minister was dismissed by Polish courts last month, said on Wednesday he will “not rest” until Mr Kaminski and his former deputy minister Maciej Wasik, are freed.

Mr Duda and the two jailed politicians are allied to the Law and Justice (PiS) party which entered opposition last month after two terms in power, though Mr Duda remains in office until next year.

In a growing standoff with PiS and its allies, centrist Civic Coalition (KO) prime minister Donald Tusk has accused Mr Duda of creating a legal “spectacle, which is leading to a very dangerous situation”.

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In response, PiS deputies have accused the Tusk administration of creating “political prisoners”, dismissed by the government, and likened the situation to Poland’s 1980s martial law era.

Outside the Warsaw prison where the two men are being held, PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski said the men were “convicted of crimes they did not commit”.

Several Polish courts have disagreed after a series of trials linked to the so-called “land scandal”. So far, four people have been convicted on charges of abuse of power, illegal surveillance and fabricating evidence in a bribes-for-rezoning affair.

The president pardoned Mr Kaminski and Mr Wasik while they were still appealing against their initial convictions, a move critics say was irregular as there was no final conviction to justify a pardon.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Mr Duda said he was “shaken” by their “brutal” arrest. He has yet to say whether he will pardon the two again, a move that might be seen as an admission that his first amnesty was flawed.

The prison drama adds another layer of complexity to the month-old Tusk administration’s attempted clear-out of deep PiS roots in Polish life, in particular pro-government public television and radio.

Opposition PiS officials have dismissed the proposed broadcaster reforms as illegal and some courts have agreed with them. These rulings are in turn ignored by the Tusk administration who say the sitting judges are themselves illegal PiS appointees installed using contested procedures.

Similar legal tugs-of-war have erupted over the convictions of Mr Kaminski and Mr Wasik and, in a third case, over whether parliament was correct to strip them of their parliamentary seats.

[ Tusk government moves to depoliticise Poland’s public institutions ]

[ Poland’s battle with Brussels over controversial reforms steps up a gear ]

With all political decisions backed by some courts and dismissed by others, Mr Tusk has warned that the growing chaos of two mutually contested legal realities is unsustainable.

Increasingly unsustainable, too, is his government’s co-habitation with Mr Duda. On Wednesday, Mr Tusk suggested the president had obstructed justice by harbouring two convicted criminals – due in prison – in the presidential palace instead.

Tensions over the Tusk-Duda co-habitation are likely to come to a head by the end of the month, the deadline for parliament to back the 2024 budget.

The new government’s budget is already contested because of proposed spending plans for public media. If Mr Duda refuses to sign the budget he could, under Polish law, in turn collapse the Tusk government.

Poland’s finance minister Andrzej Domanski insisted on Wednesday that this would not happen. “Poland is in the process of restoring the rule of law,” he said. “I think the current situation will not have an impact on Polish bond yields and the zloty.”

Already senior PiS MPs have begun calling the Sejm lower house of parliament “illegal” because of the two jailed MPs, claims dismissed by legal experts.

Sejm president Szymon Holownia, who stripped the two men of their parliamentary mandates, has postponed Thursday’s planned sitting of parliament until next week to “ensure the dignity of the Sejm and social calm”.

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