Minister of Justice Adam Bodnar provided the National Electoral Commission with further information on the flow of funds from the Justice Fund during the 2023 election campaign. He assessed that it cannot be ruled out that decisions were made based on potential political benefits.
“I again submit for the National Electoral Commission's consideration the possibility of assessing the expenditure of Justice Fund funds during the election campaign for the Sejm and Senate in 2023 through the prism of compliance with the principles of the Electoral Code,” wrote Bodnar in a letter to the head of the National Electoral Office, Magdalena Pietrzak.
PKW decision on subsidy for PIS is to take up at the meeting scheduled for 29 August. The Commission has also already received the requested documents from the Government Legislation Centre and NASK.
Annual money injection
The letter posted on the website of the Ministry of Justice on Friday concerns primarily the “Programme for protecting the interests of crime victims and witnesses and eliminating the effects of crime harm” implemented since 2019.
As indicated by the head of the Ministry of Justice, “the Program, initially planned for two years, was extended twice and additional funds were allocated for its implementation each year.” The funds were usually ultimately transferred to the Volunteer Fire Departments.
“The amount was increased on average by PLN 35 million for each subsequent year of the Program's operation. The Program was updated for 2023 in November 2022 (the funds were increased by PLN 40 million). Regardless of these additional funds, the next update of the Program took place on September 7, 2023, during the election campaign. At that time, the administrator increased the total Program funds (for 2019-2023) from PLN 180 million to PLN 210 million. This represented an increase in the total multi-year amount by 16.6%, although these additional funds were to be spent in only four months – from September to December 2023, i.e. until the end of the Program,” Bodnar informed.
Procedure for granting subsidies from the Justice Fund
As he pointed out, an entity interested in obtaining a subsidy submitted an application to the Ministry of Justice on a form provided to it by employees of the then Department of the Justice Fund. “This form was not made public. In the initial period, it was sent by e-mail at the express request of the entity or according to the indication of the Administrator. Later, the form was placed on the website of the Justice Fund, but the link leading to this page was not published anywhere,” he pointed out and added that this “clearly shows that the adopted Program was not a universal program intended for all OSPs.”
The Minister of Justice assessed that “in the absence of any substantive and financial criteria determining which applications will be implemented, the question becomes justified as to what guided the administrator when selecting applications for implementation”. “It cannot be ruled out that the administrator's decision was made based on perceived potential political and electoral benefits” – he emphasized.
“Without a doubt, thanks to the programme, the Volunteer Fire Departments have been significantly equipped, however, the existence of a direct link between, for example, the purchased generators for a total amount of PLN 476,635.44 in the period under review and helping crime victims should be considered doubtful,” the minister noted.
He noted that, in accordance with the concluded agreement, the entity was obliged to notify the administrator of the date of transfer of the acquired devices and equipment to the OSP. It was also to allow the administrator's representative – and as it results from the information provided, these were representatives of MS and Sovereign Poland – to participate in the ceremony.
“On the one hand, such meetings with the social group benefited can be considered as the proper performance of a control role as to the correctness of spending public funds. However, it can also be interpreted as an element of drawing the attention of the beneficiaries to whom they specifically owe the granting of these funds,” the minister assessed.
“These are classic actions that fall within the definition of election agitation”
According to Bodnar, “building a positive image of a given person as an effective politician, creating positive associations and arousing a sense of gratitude in meeting participants are classic activities that fall within the definition of election campaigning, one of the elements of which is publicly encouraging people to vote in a specific way.”
“If the subsidy agreement had not been concluded, the aforementioned politicians would not have had the opportunity to carry out this specific election campaign. For this reason, it should be considered that the aforementioned (…) values of the subsidy agreements should be included in their entirety towards the expenses incurred for the election campaign by the aforementioned politicians,” argues the head of the Ministry of Justice.
At the beginning of June, Bodnar asked the National Electoral Commission to verify whether the expenditure made from the Justice Fund during the 2023 parliamentary election campaign was in line with the provisions of the Electoral Code – through the prism of compliance with the principles of financing election campaigns.
“The previous management of the Ministry of Justice granted a total of 2,043 subsidies for a total amount of PLN 224 million, including PLN 201.1 million in the districts where Sovereign Poland candidates ran,” Bodnar wrote at the time in a letter to the head of the KBW.
Main image source: PAP/Radek Parsley