2024-11-06 14:58 update: 2024-11-06, 15:03
Photo PAP/Radek Pietruszka
The parliamentary act used to form the commission investigating the 2020 postal vote plan was set up in breach of the country's constitution, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal (TK) has ruled.
All three judges of the TK, Poland's highest court, Krystyna Pawlowicz, Bogdan Swieczkowski and Julia Przylebska, were unanimous about their decision.
In February, MPs from the previously ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party requested the TK to reexamine the setting up of the investigative commission on the basis that the usual and regular preparation of elections by state authorities may not be put under investigation by such a commission, as this process is governed by the constitution.
Between December 2023 and October 10, 2024, a parliamentary investigative commission probed the legality, correctness and appropriateness of the failed postal presidential election of 2020.
Poland's presidential election was initially scheduled for May 10, 2020, in the middle of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The PiS government made preparations for an entirely postal ballot even before the relevant legislation allowing the election to take place became law.
In its report, the commission concluded that the former government was adamant about holding a presidential election by postal ballot. The goal was to enable the re-election of President Andrzej Duda, originally a PiS candidate for the president's office, who "according to the vast majority of polls, could have won the elections already in the first round," the commission wrote.
The commission also decided to notify the prosecution about possible crimes committed by 19 people from the previous PiS-led government, including former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and the former lower house speaker, Elzbieta Witek.
Since the 2023 transfer of power, PiS, now in opposition, has been accused of having politicised several state authorities while in power in 2015-2023, including the TK, which has several former PiS members and loyalists in its line-up. (PAP)
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