Poland’s president has said he will not rest until two politicians from the opposition nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party – both on hunger strike – are freed from prison, in a further dramatic escalation in the new government’s battle to restore the rule of law.
“I will not rest in the fight for a fair and just Polish state,” the president, Andrzej Duda, who is closely aligned with PiS, declared on Wednesday. “I won’t be scared. I will act legally, in accordance with the constitution and the law – as before.”
Former interior minister Mariusz Kaminski and his ex-deputy Maciej Wąsik, both of whom have been convicted of abuse of power, were sent to jail a day earlier.
After eight years of rule, PiS lost its majority in elections last October and the new government, headed by Donald Tusk, faces an uphill task undoing its predecessor’s policies and evicting its supporters from key posts in the media and justice system.
Kamiński started a hunger strike on Wednesday, claiming he was a political prisoner, and was later joined in his protest by Wąsik. The pair were detained on Tuesday after seeking refuge in the presidential palace.
“I declare that I treat my conviction … as an act of political revenge,” Kamiński said in a statement read outside the prime minister’s office by his former deputy. “As a political prisoner, I started a hunger strike from the first day of my imprisonment.”
On Wednesday evening, Wąsik’s wife told private broadcaster TV Republika that her “husband also began a hunger strike.”
“He said he felt he has to, that it was necessary,” she said after the wives of both ex-ministers met with them in prison on Wednesday.
Police entered Poland’s presidential palace to detain Kaminski and Wąsik on Tuesday. The two politicians had remained in the palace after attending a ceremony there earlier that day.
“The men behaved as if the presidential palace was a kind of asylum, a territory where Polish law did not apply. And no, it is not,” current interior minister Marcin Kierwinski from the Civic Coalition (KO) party told private broadcaster TVN24.
“The police acted regardless of the fact that the case concerned well-known politicians.”
Kaminski’s lawyer told private radio RMF FM he is preparing a complaint against his Tuesday detention as well as against the court’s order to send him to prison. The station reported earlier that he was also preparing a final appeal against a conviction to the Supreme Court – a cassation – aimed at acquittal.
The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights said in a statement that calling Kaminski and Wasik “political prisoners” is a deeply unfair distortion, directly damaging the memory of people actually imprisoned because of their beliefs, attitudes, and fight for democracy and human rights.”
In a case dating back to 2007, Kamiński, who was then head of Poland’s Central Anticorruption Bureau, and his then deputy Wąsik, were convicted of abuse of power for allowing the use of fake documents in an investigation.
Both deny the charges, citing a pardon – subsequently annulled by the supreme court, although also upheld by the PiS-controlled constitutional tribunal – granted to them by Duda in 2015 and that allowed them to serve in the last government.
An appeals court ruled in December that the pair should serve two years in prison. “I want to say clearly that if a politician is in prison, it does not mean that he is a political prisoner,” the new deputy justice minister, Maria Ejchart, said on Wednesday.
Duda said earlier this week that his position was clear: “The presidential prerogative was effectively exercised in 2015, the men were pardoned. This closed the case in a definitive manner. The men have parliamentary seats.”
PiS faces multiple accusations of subverting the rule of law during its time in power and Tusk’s pro-European coalition has said it aims to bring Poland back in line with EU democratic norms and unblock tens of billions of euros in frozen EU funding.
The row over Kamiński and Wąsik looks likely to be one of many until Duda’s term ends in May 2025. PiS supporters protested after the MPs’ arrests, which the party’s spokesperson called “an illegal kidnapping and a violation of all democratic rules”.
Szymon Hołownia, speaker of the new parliament, has said the December court ruling means both men have now lost their parliamentary mandates. He postponed a parliamentary sitting planned for this week, citing a “deep constitutional crisis”.
Parliament had been due to vote on the 2024 budget at this week’s sitting. It has until the end of January to send the budget to Duda for the president to sign. If it fails to do so, the president is empowered to dissolve parliament.
Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and president of the European Council, has described the situation as “unprecedented”, accusing “the political camp that has governed Poland for eight years” of having sparked “judicial chaos”.
Coalition members argue the behaviour of Kamiński and Wąsik’s PiS-allied supporters in the courts and media is typical of the rearguard action the party intends to mount to prevent anyone being held to account for crimes allegedly committed in office.
“Two politicians legally convicted believe that they are above the law,” Tusk said on Tuesday, adding that by aiding them, Duda and others risked committing the crime of obstructing justice.
Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report
