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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
The European Parliament has voted to strip two MEPs from Poland’s national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party of legal immunity.
The decision means that the pair – former interior minister Mariusz Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik – will now face prosecution in their homeland for not complying with a ban on holding public office, a crime that carries a potential prison sentence.
Wąsik i Kamiński bez immunitetów! Parlament Europejski zdecydował. pic.twitter.com/jFcg81UJMc
— Dariusz Joński MEP🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@Dariusz_Jonski) April 1, 2025
Kamiński and Wąsik have been at the heart of a long-running legal dispute, which included them briefly being imprisoned last year before receiving a pardon from PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda.
Those prison sentences were handed down by a court in December 2023, when the pair were found guilty of abusing their powers while running Poland’s Central Anticorruption Bureau (CBA). The court also banned them from holding public office for five years.
Despite this, the pair continued to participate in the activities of the Polish parliament, for which they were charged in April 2024. The crime in question, of failing to comply with an imposed penal measure, is punishable by a prison sentence of between three months and five years.
But subsequently, the pair were elected to represent PiS in the European Parliament, granting them legal immunity.
In July 2024, Polish prosecutor general Adam Bodnar, who also serves as justice minister, submitted a request to the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, asking for Kamiński and Wąsik’s immunity to be lifted.
Last month, a majority on the parliament’s legal committee voted in favour of lifting immunity, with the issue then today put to a vote of the entire parliament, which has 720 members from across the European Union.
A majority of MEPs voted in favour of stripping the pair’s immunity, meaning that they can now face criminal charges in Poland.
Bezprawie! Odebranie immunitetów M. Kamińskiemu i M. Wąsikowi to polityczna zemsta i skaza na demokracji. Ludzie, którzy bronili Polski, są prześladowani, a Cyba – morderca z nienawiści do PiS – jest na wolności. Nie możemy się ugiąć! 🇵🇱 pic.twitter.com/M3yIKkl4zV
— Marlena Maląg (@MarlenaMalag) April 1, 2025
The decision was quickly condemned by leading PiS figures. “Lawlessness!” wrote fellow MEP Marlena Maląg. “The removal of immunity from M. Kamiński and M. Wąsik is political revenge and a stain on democracy. People who defended Poland are being persecuted.”
“We stand behind…Kamiński and Wąsik [who] are a symbol of honesty and fighting crime in Poland!” wrote Anna Zalewska, another PiS MEP.
However, Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, an MEP from the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), Poland’s main ruling group, welcomed the fact that “these two gentlemen will answer to the Polish prosecutor about why they pretended to be members of the parliament of Poland” while banned from office.
Since the KO-led government came to power in December 2023, it has led wide-ranging efforts to hold to account members of the former PiS administration for alleged crimes.
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: MSWiA (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
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.
