2025-01-08 14:43 update: 2025-01-08, 14:47
Photo PAP/Paweł Supernak
A recent National Electoral Commission (PKW) resolution to approve the financial report of the main opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) election committee is "clear-cut," the PKW chair has said.
In late December, PKW accepted the PiS electoral committee's report following a ruling in PiS's favour by the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs of the Supreme Court, despite expressing doubts about the chamber's legality.
Speaking to Polish Radio One on Wednesday, Sylwester Marciniak addressed concerns regarding the finance minister's obligation to release financing for PiS, saying that the PKW decision was "clear-cut." These concerns arose from the argument that the PKW resolution had not ruled on the chamber's legal status or the validity of its verdict.
According to Marciniak, it is not within the PKW's jurisdiction to interpret the Supreme Court rulings, but to follow them.
"If the resolution had been unclear, PKW would not have issued a letter informing about the obligation to pay out (subsidy to PiS - PAP)," Marciniak said.
"The question is whether (Finance - PAP) Minister Andrzej Domanski will now act as a proper official," he went on to say. "I believe that, despite everything, he is an official, not a politician, and will implement the PKW resolution."
In late August, PKW rejected the financial report of the PiS electoral committee. PKW found that the socially-conservative ex-ruling party misspent PLN 3.6 million (EUR 843,000) of public money during the 2023 parliamentary election campaign. This triggered a cut in the subsidy each party was eligible to receive depending on the number of voters that supported it in the elections, and, as a result, the subsidy for the PiS electoral committee was to be reduced by PLN 10.8 million (EUR 2.53 mln).
PiS appealed the decision to the Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs, a Supreme Court unit the ex-ruling party established when it was in power.
The chamber is composed of the so-called neo-judges, appointed in a procedure that the current government and EU institutions consider as politicised and thus incompatible with rule-of-law standards. (PAP)
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