Poland’s growing constitutional crisis may come to a head on Thursday when two pardoned ex-politicians demand the return of their seats in the Sejm, the country’s lower house of parliament.
On Tuesday evening Mariusz Kamiński, Poland’s last interior minister from the Law and Justice (PiS) party, and his former deputy Maciej Wąsik, were released from prison following a pardon by Poland’s president Andrzej Duda. Mr Duda’s third intervention in their case came a fortnight after they were arrested in the presidential palace, where they took refuge rather than beginning their two-year sentences on abuse-of-power convictions.
As they began a prison hunger strike the PiS-allied president refused to issue a full pardon, insisting his previous pardon from 2015 was still valid, although it was issued during an appeals process and before a final conviction.
That pardon was struck down by Poland’s supreme court last year, opening the door to the two politicians’ conviction last month. Earlier this week Mr Duda’s request for a pardon via the justice ministry was declined, prompting the president to announce his latest full pardon on live television.
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The row saw Poland’s opposition PiS party take to social media, describing Mr Kaminski and Mr Wasik as communist-era opposition heroes and political prisoners.
In their roles heading Poland’s anti-corruption drive two decades ago the two were found guilty of using agents provocateur and counterfeit documents to stage illegal “corruption” swoops.
Prime minister Donald Tusk has dismissed the political prisoner claims and suggested the “case of Mr Kaminski and Mr Wasik is not over – the case has begun”.
Mr Duda’s first pardon in 2015 had, Mr Tusk said, allowed “people who abused power continue to abuse it”. This was a possible nod to an unresolved scandal over illegal mass surveillance of PiS opponents using the Israeli-developed Pegasus software.
After PiS MPs disturbed last week’s Sejm sitting, demanding the men’s release, another rowdy sitting is likely on Thursday amid a battle for their seats, lost after their convictions. The Sejm speaker has refused to reverse that decision, arguing the presidential pardon is not an exculpation.
With hamstrung courts and a polarised parliament, Poland’s legal and political chaos has now spread to the country’s prosecution service.
After taking power in 2015, PiS folded the chief prosecutor role into the justice minister portfolio – a move critics say politicised the selection of which cases to prosecute or drop.
But new justice minister Adam Bodnar’s push to undo these PiS-era reforms has now encountered pushback from the very prosecutors he claims are politically biased and must be removed. On Wednesday a Warsaw regional prosecutor turned the tables on his boss, launching an investigation into Mr Bodnar. The bone of contention: a controversial campaign to oust Poland’s prosecution service head Dariusz Barski.
After failing to remove him by other means, Mr Bodnar claimed Mr Barski’s appointment in 2022 had been invalid from the start as it relied on laws no longer applicable at the time. But PiS politicians and allied prosecutors have vowed the fight back against Mr Bodnar’s methods, in particular after he vowed to ignore all rulings on the case by what he views as illegitimate PiS-appointed constitutional justices.
With battles raging on all fronts, the month-old Tusk administration’s budget – and possibly its future – depends on presidential approval for its spending plans by the end of the month.
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