Paweł Kukiz, the leader of an eponymous small right-wing group in Poland’s parliament, has withdrawn from an agreement to vote in favour of the government after it failed to implement one of the policies promised in return for his support.
Given that the ruling coalition, led by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, has only a narrow parliamentary majority, losing the votes of the four MPs that belong to the Kukiz’15 group could make it harder to push through legislation as well as a mooted government reshuffle.
Kukiz, a former rockstar who entered politics as an anti-establishment presidential candidate in 2015, last year reached an agreement to vote with PiS in parliament in exchange for the ruling party supporting some of his longstanding policy aims.
One of those was the introduction of justices of the peace, a type of elected local judge that Kukiz argues would improve the effectiveness of and public trust in the judicial system. However, while draft legislation to implement the idea has been prepared, it is yet to be implemented.
In an interview with news website i.pl published yesterday, Kukiz said that the agreed deadline for introducing justices of the peace was the end of September. “PiS will not have my votes until justices of the peace are introduced,” he declared.
The politician noted that, even without his support, PiS’s coalition has 231 MPs in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm. But he warned that relying on such a narrow majority on big issues – such as a vote of confidence in the under-fire prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki – would be a “risk”.
[TYLKO U NAS] Dymisji premiera @MorawieckiM na razie nie będzie. Z informacji portalu https://t.co/SfhfOTWV63 wynika, że to Paweł Kukiz pomógł Morawieckiemu zachować stanowisko https://t.co/hsmtBWudbs
— Portal i.pl (@portal_ipl) September 28, 2022
Speaking to Radio Zet this morning, Kukiz reiterated that, because “there are no justices of the peace, joint voting with PiS is ending from October”.
He said that PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński had asked him to continue voting with the government while discussions over justices of the peace are ongoing. But Kukiz told him that only when “the discussion is over and the law is passed will we return to joint voting”.
Asked about the prime minister, Kukiz said that “the fate of Mateusz Morawiecki depends on justices of the peace, not directly on me”. He repeated that, although PiS in theory has a majority, any kind of government reshuffle would be “risky” with such a narrow margin.
🎥❗️❗️@pkukiz po spotkaniu z prezesem Kaczyńskim zapowiada: Kończę wspólne głosowanie z @pisorgpl. Dotyczy to absolutnie wszystkiego ❗️❗️@RadioZET_NEWS #Kukiz #Rymanowski
Więcej tu ⬇️https://t.co/HO8pZ2ad2F pic.twitter.com/tDWyCOTMIl
— Gość Radia ZET (@Gosc_RadiaZET) September 29, 2022
Last week, Kaczyński told Radio Wrocław that PiS was “trying” to pass a law on justices of the peace but that it would “take a while” as adding a new layer to the judiciary is legally and constitutionally complicated.
On Tuesday this week, deputy justice minister Sebastian Kaleta announced that they would “within days” be finishing work on draft legislation to reform the common courts which would include “a justices-of-the-peace component”, reported the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Since the PiS-led ruling coalition won an unprecedented second term in government in 2019, it has been regularly hit by internal disagreements. That resulted last year in the expulsion of one partner party and the absorption of another, as well as some defections that led the government to briefly lose its parliamentary majority.
Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Gazeta
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.
