Lawmakers from the Law and Justice Party (PiS) tried to storm the Polish parliament on Wednesday, forcing security to allow two expelled ex-lawmakers, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, to enter.
Kamiński and Wąsik automatically lost their parliamentary seats when they were sentenced to two years in prison for abusing their former positions. However, they were pardoned by President Andrzej Duda and released after only two weeks.
According to the ruling majority and parliamentary speaker Szymon Hołownia (Poland 2050, Renew), none of the men can regain their mandates because they were convicted by final judgements, and the Polish constitution bars people with convictions from serving as MPs.
The conservative Law and Justice party (PiS, ECR), to which Kamiński and Wąsik belong, disagrees and believes that Hołownia illegally removed them from their seats.
As the parliamentary session began on Wednesday, a group of PiS MPs scuffled with security guards outside the parliament building, demanding that Kamiński and Wąsik be allowed to return to the legislature.
“The fight that Maciej and I are fighting is not a private issue of ours,” Kamiński told the media after being prevented from entering the building.
He called Hołownia’s decision revoking his and Wąsik’s mandate “a crime against democracy” and argued that without them, the parliament is sitting with an unconstitutional number of deputies.
When PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński asked to let the two men into the building, the security services offered to take them to the pass office to get a pass to enter the parliament if they wished.
Arresting Kamiński and Wąsik last month sparked an outrage within PiS. They were brought to the arrest straight from the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, where Duda, a former PiS member, offered them shelter.
After the arrest, a wave of protests emerged among PiS politicians and supporters, who argued that Kamiński and Wąsik were political prisoners, and they were tortured during the arrest, for instance, by force-feeding Kamiński, who launched a hunger strike. For PiS, both politicians are the victims of what they call “Tusk’s authoritarian regime.”
The wide coalition of centrist and leftist parties led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk came to power last December due to the national election, replacing the PiS government that had ruled Poland since 2015.
PiS says sentencing and arresting Kamiński and Wąsik is just another proof of Tusk’s camp violating the rule of law and dismantling the democratic order in Poland.
“You will not rule forever. For each of these criminal actions that you take directly against us, but actually against democracy in our country, you will be brought to justice,” Kamiński warned the government.
Still, Hołownia insists that under a ruling by the court, Kamiński and Wąsik’s are no longer MPs, and they will not be allowed into the parliamentary chamber nor take part in votes
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)
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