2025-01-05 14:48 update: 2025-01-05, 14:52
Photo PAP/Marian Zubrzycki
Crucial judiciary reforms that so far have been blocked by the incumbent right-wing president will be ready by August, when the new head of state takes office, Rafal Trzaskowski, a centrist presidential candidate who tops opinion polls, has said.
President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the former ruling party, the socially-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), has been a staunch opponent of any reforms aimed to reverse the changes to the judiciary system introduced by the former government. The PiS reforms put Poland on a collision course with the EU and led Brussels to launch a rule-of-law infringement procedure against Warsaw. Numerous international courts have ruled that the changes and some legal bodies introduced by PiS do not comply with rule-of-law standards and do not ensure the independence of judges from politicians.
Trzaskowski said in an online chat on Saturday it is high time to end the "legal dualism... that ridicules and weakens our country."
He also said that ministers in the current pro-European government had told him that "the bills that are crucial for our political system will be ready by August."
"I hope many of them will enter into force as soon as possible," Trzaskowski added.
Trzaskowski's main rival is Karol Nawrocki, head of the Institute of National Remembrance who is supported by PiS.
Duda is ending his second term of office this year and cannot be re-elected.
A recent United Surveys poll, commissioned by the Wirtualna Polska news outlet, estimated Trzaskowski's voter support at 36.2 percent against Nawrocki's 28.8 percent.
Poles will elect their next president in May. (PAP)
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