Convicted former ministers named as EU election candidates by Polish opposition

Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party, has named two politicians convicted of abusing their powers as candidates for June’s European elections.

The pair – former interior minister Mariusz Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik – were in December handed jail sentences and banned from holding public office, but were later pardoned by President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally.

It has long been rumoured that they would be chosen to stand for the European Parliament after they lost their status as members of Poland’s parliament due to their convictions. MEPs enjoy legal immunity.

On Wednesday, PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński confirmed that the pair would stand, calling them “good candidates”. However, he added that “it is necessary to clarify the [legal] situation in which there are two Supreme Court rulings”, reported the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

That is a reference to the contested legal status of the pair. They and PiS insist that the convictions they received in December are invalid because Kamiński and Wąsik were previously pardoned of the crimes in question by Duda in 2015.

However, in June last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the 2015 pardons were themselves invalid because they were issued while Kamiński and Wąsik were still appealing against their convictions. That opened the way for the pair to be given final, binding convictions in December.

On 4 January this year, one chamber of the Supreme Court effectively endorsed PiS’s position, ruling that the decision to end Wąsik’s parliamentary mandate due to his conviction in December was invalid. But a week later another chamber of the same court upheld the decision to end Kamiński’s mandate.

Kamiński and PiS have argued that the latter decision was made by a chamber not authorised to rule on the issue, whereas the ruling relating to Wąsik is valid.

But other legal authorities – including the chamber that issued the decision on Kamiński – say that the chamber which issued the decision on Wąsik is itself not a legitimate body due to the manner in which it was created and staffed during the contested overhaul of the judiciary led by the PiS government.

In January, Kamiński and Wąsik were forced to begin serving their two-year jail sentences. However, they were released later the same month after Duda issued another pardon to the pair.

Speaking on Wednesday evening to TV Republika, Kamiński and Wąsik confirmed Kaczyński’s announcement that they had been invited to stand as candidates for the European Parliament.

“In the coming days, the PiS authorities will approve the lists [of candidates] and make them public, so in the coming days it will be official,” said Kamiński.

However, Wąsik added that, even if they win seats in Strasbourg, that does not mean they are giving up their legal fight in Poland. He accused the speaker of parliament, Szymon Hołownia, of “committing a crime” by not allowing the pair to continue serving as MPs.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

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.