Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday said that he has started the process to once again pardon two politicians who were arrested earlier this week amid a standoff between the new government and the previous administration.
The development came as tens of thousands of people waving Poland’s white-and-red flag protested in front of the parliament building in Warsaw and later marched to the office of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The demonstration was organized by the former governing party, Law and Justice, which held power for eight years until last month and is closely aligned with Duda.
Photo: Reuters
Law and Justice leader and lawmaker Jaroslaw Kaczynski spoke against Tusk’s new government, which favors closer ties to the EU.
“We must stop this power and, at the right moment [and] using the election ballot, change it in a way that will prevent it from ever coming back again, because it is not a proper Polish power,” Kaczynski said. “Polish power should defend Polish interests.”
Law and Justice urged its supporters to protest moves by the new government to take control of state media.
The protest was also against the arrests on Tuesday of the two senior party members who served in the Law and Justice government, former Polish minister of the interior Mariusz Kaminski and former deputy minister of the interior Maciej Wasik. They were also stripped of their parliamentary mandates and immunity.
Kaminski and Wasik were convicted of abuse of power for actions taken in 2007, when they served in an earlier Law and Justice-led government.
Duda pardoned them in 2015, although legal experts argued that the pardons were not legal because presidential pardons are reserved for cases that have gone through all appeals, which was not the case then.
In June, the Polish Supreme Court overturned the pardons and ordered a retrial.
Kaminski and Wasik were convicted again and sentenced last month to two years in prison.
Police on Tuesday arrested them while they were at Duda’s presidential palace.
Duda has maintained that his 2015 pardons were legal, but on Thursday he said he was initiating clemency proceedings for the two men at the request of their wives.
This time, Duda appealed to the minister of justice, who is also the prosecutor general, to approve their pardons and to release the two men from prison while the decision is being made.
He said that he wanted everything to be done according to Poland’s constitution and other laws.
His announcement came shortly before the protest organized by Law and Justice, which had governed since 2015 before losing the election.
Now in the opposition, the party called for a protest by “Free Poles” in defense of democracy and free media.
Earlier on Thursday, a chamber of the Supreme Court ruled that the October election was valid. The election had a record nationwide turnout of more than 74 percent and gave power to a coalition of parties opposed to Law and Justice.
Tusk’s government is set on reversing some policies of its populist predecessor, including ones that brought conflict with the EU, such as changes that put Poland’s justice system under political control.
In one of its first steps, Tusk’s government moved to take control of state television, radio and news agency PAP.
Leaders of the former government say that Tusk’s moves were illegal and have staged occupations of the media premises.
The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw said the manner in which the new government has taken control of state media “raises serious legal doubts,” but many law experts say Law and Justice has complicated regulations to such an extent that bold steps are needed to untangle them.
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