The sanitary authorities have confirmed that coronavirus restrictions were violated during a recent mass in honour of the late mother of Poland’s most powerful politician, Jarosław Kaczyński. They will, however, take no action over the breach.
At the service last month, Kaczyński was pictured sitting on a pew in close proximity to other worshippers, despite rules requiring that people at religious ceremonies maintain a distance of at least 1.5 metres from one another.
Kaczyński – who holds the position of deputy prime minister but, as chairman of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, is Poland’s de facto leader – also gave a speech from alongside the altar without a mask, despite only priests leading worship being exempt from face-covering requirements.
Although Kaczyński’s mother, Jadwiga, was a teacher who held no public office, the memorial mass in her hometown of Starachowice was broadcast live on Polish state television. Kaczyński used his speech to warn that “evil is attacking our country…[and] the institution that is at the heart of our identity, the Catholic church.”
After the service, a local NGO submitted a complaint to the state sanitary authority, Sanepid, which is tasked with enforcing coronavirus restrictions. It accused Kaczyński and others at the event – which was attended by leading PiS figures from the region – of violating those restrictions.
After analysing the issue for over a month, including obtaining testimony from people who participated in the service, the Starachowice branch of Sanepid has decided to discontinue proceedings without taking action.
“There were no formal or legal grounds to impose an administrative penalty on the organiser, who was the parish priest,” the local head of Sanepid, Ewa Dróżdż, told Onet. She noted that the church itself complied with all of its responsibilities, including by limiting attendance numbers.
Dróżdż admitted, however, that, while the majority of “participants wore masks and kept the appropriate distance, the exception was the six people sitting in the first pew”. In separate remarks to Gazeta Wyborcza, Dróżdż also acknowledged that Kaczyński had removed his mask during his speech.
The rest of us cannot go outside in the company of more than one other person, and we must keep a distance of at least two metres from that person, under threat of a fine.
The rest of us are not Jarosław Kaczyński. pic.twitter.com/W6q53N8bRH
— Ben Stanley (@BDStanley) April 10, 2020
“The [masking] regulation was violated and we don’t dispute that,” she told the newspaper. “Distancing should also have been respected, but it was not.”
Yet she argued that Sanepid was not empowered to retrospectively issue penalties against individuals for breaching these rules. Violations of masking and distancing requirements are punished with on-the-spot fines, she said, “but we were not at the mass”.
Police are also able to issue such fines, and last month the parish priest confirmed to Wirtualna Polska that “the police checked everything” at the event. However, no fines were issued on the day. In his role as deputy prime minister, Kaczyński has special oversight of security issues, including policing.
The NGO that submitted the complaint to Sanepid says that it will appeal against the ruling. “Sanepid did not take into account the applicable legal order and, relying only on the explanations of PiS politicians, issued a politicised decision,” the NGO, Forum Unia Młodych, told Onet.
Kaczyński is not the first prominent figure from Poland’s ruling camp to be accused of contravening coronavirus restrictions at religious ceremonies.
In December, the justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro attended a mass to celebrate the birthday of Radio Maryja, a Catholic broadcaster. Although Ziobro spoke at the event without a mask and it appeared that attendance was above permitted limits, Sanepid concluded that rules had not been breached.
Last March, during the first lockdown, President Andrzej Duda was pictured praying at Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, Poland’s holiest Catholic shrine. At least ten people appeared to be in the chapel, despite rules at the time limiting attendance at religious services to five people.
Kaczyński himself also aroused controversy last April during events to commemorate the Smolensk plane disaster in which his identical twin, President Lech Kaczyński, was one of the victims. The PiS chairman and other officials were accused of ignoring restrictions on public gatherings, though police said there had been no violation.
Later in the year, a government spokesman apologised after Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was pictured on his own social media account having a meal in a restaurant in breach of restrictions. Morawiecki was also separately photographed in a shop not wearing a mask, as required.
Earlier this month, a court was asked to rule whether senior PiS figures had violated coronavirus restrictions during commemorations of the Smolensk disaster. It found, however, that, because the restrictions are themselves unconstitutional, “non-compliance with them cannot, by definition, be considered an unlawful act”.
For more on the growing number of court rulings that have questioned the legality and constitutionality of Poland's Covid restrictions – and the growing number of businesses therefore choosing to flout them – see our recent article by @PatrykWachowiec https://t.co/Z5Q7iPROk7
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 18, 2021
Poland escaped the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic with relatively few cases and deaths after introducing one of Europe’s earliest and toughest lockdowns. It was then hit hard by the second wave, suffering some of the highest death rates in the world during October and November.
Infections have subsequently fallen significantly, after the government reintroduced lockdown measures. However, since last week the daily numbers of cases have again been increasing after a loosening of restrictions, with the health ministry warning that a third wave is now beginning.
The government yesterday reintroduced restrictions in one province with particularly high infection rates. It also toughened face-covering requirements, and again appealed to the public to adhere to them.
Main image credit: Echo Dnia Świętokrzyskie (screenshot)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
