Opposition sees coup d’état
Poland lets commission examine “Russian influence”.
05/27/2023, 12:31 am
Poland’s government wants to take action against officials who have been under “Russian influence” in recent years. Parliament decides that an almost immune body should carry out a corresponding investigation. The opposition senses a coup d’etat.
The Polish parliament has decided to deploy a controversial commission of inquiry into “Russian influence in Poland”. The decision was made on Friday in the lower house dominated by the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) and was condemned by the opposition as a “constitutional coup d’etat” that turns politicians into judges.
A nine-member panel is to decide whether people under investigation succumbed to Russian influence between 2007 and 2022. The government has not provided an appeals process for people found guilty. You face a ten-year ban from office. The declared aim is to prevent such people from “acting again under Russian influence to the detriment of Poland’s interests”.
The board will be chaired by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The members of the Commission, who are to be appointed by Parliament, are not accountable for their decisions. Critics of the bill complained that the commission undermined the separation of powers, since the panel members appointed by the House of Commons are both investigators and judges on cases.
Opposition: Law drafted by “Horde Huns”
“It’s as if it had been drafted by a horde of Huns,” independent Senator Krzysztof Kwiatkowski said at the Senate’s first reading of the law in early May. At that time it was rejected. The revised version has now been passed by the House of Commons, a few months before the general election.
Other senators spoke of a “witch hunt” and a “puppet court” in connection with the commission. The opposition fears that the new body could be used against opponents of the nationalist PiS, meaning that they could be banned from office if they win the elections.
The text of the law still has to be signed off by Poland’s President Andrzej Duda (PiS). He initially did not comment on this.