The new government in Poland has begun to reverse controversial judicial reforms implemented by its predecessors. The biggest opponent is President Duda. By Martin Adam.
A shaky cell phone video. You can see the new Polish Justice Minister Adam Bodnar. Behind the camera: Deputy Attorney General Robert Hernand. “With all due respect to you, Mr. Minister, we believe your actions are unlawful and we inform you, Mr. Minister, that we will take appropriate steps,” says Hernand.
Polish prosecutors are suing their boss, the Attorney General and Justice Minister Adam Bodnar. This process shows how hard the fight for the rule of law is being fought in Poland after the change of government. Bodnar had previously fired the number two in the Polish public prosecutor’s office, state prosecutor Dariusz Barski. Barski was a confidante of the former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro and was closely linked to the instrumentalization of the judiciary by the national-populist PiS government.
President Duda sees himself as the last bulwark
But the PiS had taken precautions before being voted out in October and changed the rules: in order to dismiss the state prosecutor, the consent of President Andrzej Duda is now required, who is increasingly emerging as the last bulwark of the PiS. Duda appeared unusually angry on Sunday: “This should be a warning to all politicians in the republic, especially those in power now, about where the arrogance of power leads. Or as I call it: ‘the terror of the rule of law.'”
The “terror of the rule of law” – Duda’s words are seen by many in Poland as revealing. The president had covered up almost every intervention by the PiS government in the courts for eight years. His opponent, Justice Minister Bodnar, argues that the state prosecutor was not actually fired because his appointment in 2022 was already unlawful.
The fight for justice is just one of many
“My main goal is for the prosecutor’s office to become an independent body that serves citizens in prosecuting crime and monitoring the rule of law,” Bodnar said on Monday. The new state prosecutor he appointed will only hold the position temporarily until a successor is found in an open competition.
The dispute over the prosecutor’s office and the rule of law is one of many in which the new government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk is colliding with the structures created by the PiS.
Ex-president: “Minefield for democracy”
That was foreseeable, says Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who was Polish president until 2005: “For eight years, the PiS – often outside the constitution or at its borders – made changes to the state structures and installed safeguards in the event that they took power loses,” he says.
“For some it was part of the reforms, for others it was a minefield in Polish democracy.” The demining started by the Tusk government is exceptionally difficult and risky, “because mines can explode,” says Kwaśniewski. “Some of it has probably already exploded.”
Tusk rises Confrontation course
The new government doesn’t want to give in yet. Justice Minister Bodnar announced that he would dissolve another PiS invention by law: the personal union of the justice minister and the attorney general. Prime Minister Tusk said after a meeting with the president that he was striving for exactly what Duda calls “terror of the rule of law” – a rule of law.
Martin Adam, ARD Warsaw, tagesschau, January 16, 2024 7:24 a.m