Brussels – It was only a matter of time, as when the European Parliament returns from its summer break, it will have to take a stand. From Poland, the case of the two members of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party convicted of abuse of office who for nearly a decade managed to escape Polish justice thanks to parliamentary immunity – the former interior minister Mariusz Kamiński and the former state secretary of the same ministry Maciej Wąsik – came to Brussels with their election to the Europea Parliament in June. Now, the two Poles enjoy parliamentary immunity as MEPs, but the Prosecutor General’s Office started the procedures to bring them finally home to justice.
Poland’s attorney general, Adam Bodnar, yesterday (July 29) submitted to the European Parliament president, Roberta Metsola applications for consent to bring criminal proceedings against Kamiński and Wąsik and revoke their parliamentary immunity. “The evidence gathered in the case provided a basis for establishing that, despite the legally binding ban on holding public office imposed on them, they did not comply with this ban and exercised their mandate as members of parliament,” according to the statement from the Warsaw Prosecutor General’s Office. The two members of the party of the ultraconservative former premier, Mateusz Morawiecki, were convicted in 2015 in an abuse of power case from eight years earlier when they instigated the crime of a political opponent (who later committed suicide) under investigation.
At the time – a few weeks after the ultraconservative party came to power – the president of the Republic, Andrzej Duda (PiS), decided to pardon the two ultraconservative politicians, granting them entry first into the government of Beata Szydło and then into the government led by Morawiecki. However, the decision did not respect one of the principles of the rule of law, namely the natural course of the judicial process (that can end with the granting of a pardon), and seemed politically motivated. Kamiński and Wąsik were eventually sentenced to two years in prison by the Warsaw District Court. After the new Parliament was sworn in in November last year, the new speaker, Szymon Hołownia (Poland 2050), ordered the revocation of the mandates of the two deputies newly elected from the ranks of the PiS, stripping them of their parliamentary immunity.
However, a dramatic episode in Warsaw took center stage earlier this year. On January 9, the Polish police entered the presidential palace to take into custody the two convicted PiS parliamentarians, who had taken refuge in Duda’s residence to seek a pardon. It was one of the most tense moments in Poland caused by the attempt of the newly elected popular prime minister, Donald Tusk, to realign the country to the principles of the rule of law within weeks of the new government coming into office backed by the anti-PiS centrist coalition. Tusk is devoting himself to unhinging the system of the cronyism that has characterized the eight years of ultra-conservative rule in crucial areas such as the media, state-owned enterprises, and the judiciary, and which is not over, as seen by the move by the Attorney General’s Office. However, as Kamiński and Wąsik have been MEPs since July 16 and enjoy parliamentary immunity throughout the EU, it will be possible to hold them criminally responsible only after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament. If President Metsola gives the green light, there will be a final vote in the plenary session.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
