Since the swearing-in of Donald Tusk's government last year, there have been a number of violations in Poland, including the violation of constitutional principles of the democratic regulation of law, the regulation of legalism, or the constitutional principles of the state's relations with churches and another spiritual unions, alerted the Ordo Iuris Institute. In a peculiar report, lawyers looked at the most crucial illegal moves of the present power. As they have shown, the phrase about the restoration of the regulation of law in the country is nothing like a lamentable reality.
Following the Polish parliamentary elections of 15 October 2023, 13 December 2023, after 8 years of the regulation of the United Right, a fresh Council of Ministers formed by the Coalition of Citizens, Poland 2050, Polish People's organization and Left was appointed.
The fresh Polish government, with Donald Tusk at the head, based on an ad hoc resolution of its controlled parliamentary majority, informal "guidelines" and opinions of friendly lawyers, has in the following months taken many illegal actions to destruct the opposition from public space.
These activities were undertaken under the cover of unlawful public media and power-enhancing commercial stations and with the support of representatives of the European Union. These actions agree with the foundations of the democratic regulation of law, creating a revolutionary order of "transitional justice" or as Donald Tusk himself called "a fighting democracy". The Ordo Iuris Institute extensively described them in a peculiar report. We'll find quite a few key information in it.
Dr. Bartosz Zalewski in the chapter of the study on the acquisition of public media reminded of the resolution adopted by the Sejm "on restoring the legal order and impartiality and reliability of public media and the Polish Press Agency". It resulted in the entry into the office of Polish Television, Polish Radio and Polish Press Agency of people who claimed to be the fresh chairmans of the supervisory boards of these institutions. All 3 companies were put in liquidation by the Minister of Culture Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz. Dr. Zalewski emphasizes that changes in public media were made illegally – they violated competences which were legally reserved for the National Media Council. Moreover, in the case of public broadcasting companies, it is not possible to put them into liquidation without prior legal amendments to the Broadcasting Act.
The study besides addressed the subject of the pressures that Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar applied to the judiciary, attempting to dismiss the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of certain courts, in violation of the applicable rules. In its judgement of 16 October 2024, the Constitutional Court stated that the anticipation of dismissing the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the courts without the participation of the National Judicial Council constitutes a violation of constitutional guarantees of the independency of judges. Analyst Ordo Iuris Jędrzej Jabłoński stressed that the actions of the Minister of Justice constitute a clear example of violations of the rule of division of authorities and can be considered as political pressures to guarantee that the justice strategy is sound in relation to the government's actions. Another action by Adam Bodnar hitting the regulation of law was to challenge the procedure of election of judges to the National Judicial Council.
Legal advisor Marek Puzio and Patryk Ignaszczak, on the another hand, described the acquisition of the prosecution without the provisions of the law in force. - The D.A.'s law. The government ignored the procedure required to dismiss the National Prosecutor in the individual of Dariusz Barski, for which it was essential to get written consent of the president of the Republic of Poland. In place of the National Prosecutor, the institution of the “p.o. of the National Prosecutor” was established as an unknown law, entrusting this position to Jack Bilewicz. In the end, the Prime Minister Donald Tusk appointed the National Prosecutor Dariusz Korneluk, without obtaining the legitimate opinion of the president of the Republic of Poland.
On the another hand, Katarzyna Gęsiak mentioned an effort to circumvent the rules prohibiting abortion. In July 2024, the Sejm rejected the bill, which would de facto legalise abortion on request. Therefore, wellness Minister Izabela Leszczyna issued instructions to doctors in which she indicated how to circumvent the existing government in this regard. Expert Ordo Iuris
indicated that the guidelines were not a origin of law and did not require doctors to apply them. On the contrary, they exposure doctors implementing them to civil, criminal and disciplinary liability.
Dr. Łukasz Bernaciński of the Management Board of Ordo Iuris pointed out that the activities of the Minister of Education Barbara Nowacka from the first day of her office were aimed, among others, at lowering the reputation of spiritual classes and dissuadeing students from attending these classes. The lawyer commented on the regulation issued in this respect by the Ministry of National Education, providing, among others, for a simplification in the number of hours of catechesis and placing it at the first or last lesson hour. He pointed out that making specified changes can, according to law, be carried out only after acceptance of the Catholic Church and another spiritual unions, which was lacking in this case. For this reason, on 27 November, the Constitutional Court ruled that this regulation was incompatible with the Constitution.
The March of independency Association besides became the subject of attacks from the current power. These include the refusal to grant March independency the position of a cyclical assembly or the first deficiency of approval of president of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski to organize the March in 2024. Moreover, in September of that year the police entered the office of the Association, searching the premises under the orders of the prosecutor and confiscating, among others, IT equipment, including 1 belonging to another organizations located in the same place.
Jerzy Kwasniewski recalled the issue of the extinguishing of the parliamentary seats of Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik. The talker of the Sejm Simon Holovnia made this decision, even though both Members were pardoned by the president of Poland and did not appear in the National Criminal registry as convicts. president Ordo Iuris stressed that the Marshal of the Sejm wrongly deactivated the ballot cards of Maciej Wąsik and Mariusz Kamiński. The 2 provisions of Simon Holowna on the termination of parliamentary seats were previously repealed by the home of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs, which meant that Maciej Wąsik and Mariusz Kamiński did not lose parliamentary seats.
Nicodemus Bernaciak, on the another hand, wrote about the detention of Mr Marcin Romanowski, which was carried out under the orders of the prosecutor acting under the authority of Adam Bodnar, ignoring the fact that the MP had not only immunity as a parliamentarian (who had previously been waived) but besides separate immunity as a associate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The lawyer notes that the procedural violations committed by individual officers and officials under Adam Bodnar in the Marcin Romanowski case go beyond national scale, reaching up to the level of global conventions.
The study besides addressed violations of the law related to the arrest of Fr Michał Olszewski. According to the account of both the detainee and his defender, the priest repeatedly faced terrible treatment on the part of the services – the priest was complicated to contact the lawyer, unreasonably put on handcuffs, refused to eat for respective twelve hours, and hindered utilizing the toilet. Adam Bodnar's prosecutors besides attempted to illegally deprive Father Olszewski of his own attorney, Krzysztof Wąsowski, of suggesting that he was a witness in this case, not a defender.
These and another violations of the regulation of law, specified as questioning or ignoring court rulings which are uncomfortable to the authorities and not publishing Constitutional Court decisions, can be found out more by reading the full content of the report. It is available at the link Year_devacation_state_right_report_2.pdf
Ordo Iuris/ FA
