Actions to restore democracy may sometimes “not fully comply with law”, admits Tusk

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has admitted that, in his efforts to restore democracy in Poland, he may sometimes take actions that will be “not fully compliant with the law”. But he said that this was because of the legal chaos left behind by the former Law and Justice (PiS) government.

Tusk was speaking on Tuesday at a conference entitled “Ways Out of the Constitutional Crisis” held in the Senate with the participation of the speakers of both houses of parliament as well as various prominent legal authorities, including four former chief justices of the constitutional court.

In his remarks, which came a day after the prime minister was accused of unlawfully withdrawing his signature from a document, he said that in its eight years of rule PiS “truly devastated the [legal] system, and not even in a black and white way, because we are all drowning in shades of grey, in these interpretative gaps”.

This situation is no accident, said Tusk, who accused PiS of having the specific “intention to destroy the [constitutional] order and not to strengthen or build it”, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“If we want to restore the constitutional order and the foundations of liberal democracy…[we] will probably make mistakes or commit actions that, according to some legal authorities, will be inconsistent or not fully compliant with the provisions of the law,” admitted the prime minister.

“Every day, I have to make decisions…with full awareness of the risk that not all of them will meet the criteria of full legality from the point of view of purists – in the good sense of the word,” he added.

“But nothing excuses us from the obligation to act,” concluded Tusk. “Without these decisions, there would be no point in me taking on the responsibility of running the government’s work.”

Tusk’s remarks were ridiculed by figures from PiS, which is now the main conservative opposition party. “Tusk [says he] will probably break the law to restore the law,” wrote MP Tobiasz Bocheński. “According to this logic, one must steal to become honest.”

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During PiS’s eight years in power, many of its actions – particularly in relation to its overhaul of the judiciary – were found by Polish and European courts, as well as a range of domestic and international organisations, to have violated the rule of law. Opinion polls showed that most of the public held this view too.

When Tusk’s new, more liberal ruling coalition took power in December, one of its central goals was to restore the rule of law. However, it has itself been accused of violating the law. Its takeover of public media in December was questioned by many independent legal experts and aspects of it were rejected by courts.

This week, Tusk himself aroused controversy when he announced that he was “revoking” his signature from a judicial appointment that he said he had made “by mistake.” Many respected legal authorities have said he had no legal basis for such a decision.

Today, another opposition party, Confederation (Konfederacja), announced that it was submitting a notification to prosecutors accusing Tusk of violating the law by withdrawing his signature.

Main image credit: KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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.