Polish President Duda pardons two jailed politicians in clash with Tusk

Polish President Andrzej Duda made a U-turn on Tuesday by pardoning two politicians from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party who had been convicted of abuse of power and were in jail for the past two weeks.

The case lies at the heart of a fight between Duda and new Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is seeking to unravel eight years of rule by PiS government decisions by rooting the previous administration’s loyalists out of key institutions like the media, courts and state-owned corporations and restoring rule of law. Duda is aligned with PiS and still has considerable ability to thwart Tusk’s attempts at reform. 

The pardon is a significant defeat for the Polish president, who had initially claimed that a previous pardon he issued in 2015 was enough to keep the two PiS lawmakers, Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, out of jail. Their case has been seized on by PiS partisans, who claimed that the two were political prisoners.

“The order on the right of clemency has been issued. The gentlemen are pardoned,” Duda said.

“I urge you to immediately proceed further with the case — to immediately execute the president’s order and immediately release the gentlemen, especially Mariusz Kamiński in view of his health,” the president added.

The Polish Supreme Court ruled that Duda’s 2015 pardon was invalid as it was issued before Kamiński and Wąsik’s final conviction, and kicked the case back to a lower court, which convicted them in December and sentenced them to two years in prison. They were found guilty of using fake documents in a 2007 attempt to incriminate the coalition allies of Law and Justice — leading to the collapse of the short-lived government.

The two ignored the verdict and took refuge in Duda’s presidential palace in central Warsaw, where they were arrested on January 9. They subsequently both went on a hunger strike.

Kamiński was briefly taken to hospital on Monday because his blood sugar level was dangerously low, Polish media reported.

Pro-PiS crowds have spend days demonstrating outside the prisons where the two were being held.

However, there is little public support for the effort to free them early. A survey for the Super Express newspaper found that 60 percent of those polled wanted them to stay behind bars.

The justice ministry also recommended that they should stay in prison in an opinion sent earlier Tuesday to Duda.

But Duda had been under growing pressure from PiS party leaders to free them. In his statement, he called their conviction and imprisonment a “shame.”

His political opponents were quick to react.

“The president stands against the law and the state, and on the side of criminals who used the [secret] services to persecute opponents,” said Marcin Bosacki, an MP with Civic Coalition, one of the four parties making up the new government.

Although the presidential pardon eliminates the penalty, it does not cancel their conviction. The Polish constitution bars people with a conviction from serving in parliament, and the speaker of parliament, Szymon Hołownia, has already declared that their seats are vacant.

However, not all PiS members see it that way.

“Speaker Hołownia now has the responsibility to allow our deputies to carry out their mandates,” said Mariusz Błaszczak, the former defense minister, who said the two should be rewarded for battling corruption.

Although Kamiński and Wąsik are set to be released, it’s not likely to be the last time they face the risk of prison. The new parliament has set up a commission on the use of Pegasus spyware to eavesdrop on opposition politicians — something that was allegedly done when the two headed the interior ministry during the previous PiS government.

“Given Kamiński’s and Wąsik’s other exploits, it cannot be ruled out that this will not be the last of their pardons by A. Duda,” tweeted Civic Coalition MP Dariusz Joński.