Scuffles outside Polish parliament as banned MPs seek entry

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) - Two MPs from Poland’s main opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS) – Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik – on Wednesday tried to forcefully enter Poland’s lower house of parliament, Sejm, as scuffles broke out with the guards.

Szymon Holowina – speaker of the Sejm and leader of ‘Poland 2050’ (Polska 2050), a junior governing partner – ruled the two MPs’ parliamentary mandates had expired after they were sentenced to prison in late 2023.

Kaminski and Wasik had sought refuge in the presidential palace in December after President Andrzej Duda said his original pardons remained legally valid and initiated a second procedure that led to their release two weeks later. Holownia insists his order is still in force.

“We are MPs. It turns out that MPs cannot enter the Sejm. We are MPs in accordance with the judgment of the Supreme Court, which overturned Holownia's decision,” said Wasik outside the Sejm on Wednesday. "This is an authoritarian state," he told journalists.

Since the new coalition government – led by Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform (PO) party – took office in December, Poland has faced a political standoff with its legal institutions its key battleground. At its core is a fight between the government and President Duda allied with PiS.

The case of former PiS Interior Minister Kaminski and his deputy Wasik is one of several that while ostensibly legal in nature, carry significant political baggage, both short- and long-term. Many critics of PiS suggest the party is conducting a kind of guerrilla warfare with the aim of impeding the government’s agenda. PiS accuses the government of using undemocratic methods.

In January, both men were arrested and imprisoned. The two had received convictions in 2015 for exceeding their powers during a 2007 investigation into scandal when heading the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA). Duda then issued them with presidential pardons and these were upheld by the constitutional tribunal, Poland’s most senior judicial body, but seen by PO as a PiS-stacked institution.

“Everything was supposed to be different, but there was a brawl caused by the Marshal's Guard,” said PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski on Wednesday. “We only wanted to show that the authorities are acting illegally,” he added.

Kaczynski was asked by journalists about the existence of a list of PiS politicians who were supposedly under surveillance using Pegasus software by the secret services while under the supervision of Kaminski and Wasik. The PiS leader said he knew nothing about it.

“All civilized countries have access to this Pegasus device and the fact that Poland also had it was nothing extraordinary. A group of thieves terrified by this Pegasus, who were in the opposition and now are in power, simply had an attack of hysteria,” said Kaczynski.

Tusk responded to Kaczynski's statement almost immediately. "A bunch of thieves terrified by Pegasus, says President Kaczynski. I couldn't have said it better myself," Tusk wrote on social media.

Gazeta.pl reported recently that PiS had circulated a list of PiS politicians who were under surveillance by the secret services.

“Poland’s bitter political and systemic conflict has been exacerbated by the fact that the two sides appear to increasingly operate within different legal orders,” said political analyst Aleks Szczerbiak.

The issue dates back to the beginning of the PiS governments in 2015 when Duda refused to swear in three tribunal members nominated by the outgoing PO-dominated parliament, he added in an email to Anadolu.

PiS argues that these three nominees were appointed unlawfully.

“This legal dualism means that both sides now have their own set of laws, experts, judges and tribunals, and feel that some judicial authorities are acting on the basis of political sympathy rather than an objective legal framework,” Szczerbiak said.

He believes this stand-off could last until the end of Duda’s mandate in 2025.