“Lex Tusk” on the president’s desk. Sienkiewicz: Only a veto will protect the honor of the president

On Friday, the parliamentary majority adopted the “lex Tusk”, i.e. the law proposed by PiS on the establishment of the State Commission for the Study of Russian Influences. 226 voted in favor PiS deputies (with Anna Maria Siarkowska abstaining from the vote), as well as three MPs from Kukiz’15, three MPs from the Polish Affairs group and two non-associated MPs.

124 MPs of the Civic Coalition, 43 MPs of the Left, 24 MPs of the Polish Coalition, seven MPs of the Confederation, six MPs of Poland 2050, four MPs of the Agreement, three MPs of the Democratic Left, three Libertarian MPs and three unaffiliated MPs voted against.

READ MORE: The parliamentary majority adopted the “lex Tusk”. The head of the PO present in the meeting room

The State Commission for the Study of Russian Influences on the Internal Security of the Republic of Poland in the years 2007-2022, established under the act called “lex Tusk”, would operate on principles similar to the functioning of the verification commission for reprivatization in Warsaw. The decisions it could take include, among others, a ban on performing functions related to the disposal of public funds for up to 10 years and the withdrawal and banning of security clearance for 10 years.

The opposition invariably says that this is an unconstitutional regulation aimed at them. Among others, Janusz Kowalski from Sovereign Poland admitted that he hoped that “the effect of the commission’s work will be to put Donald Tusk before the State Tribunal”. Later, the MP claimed, among other things, that his “life goal” was to “put Tusk and Waldemar Pawlak in prison”.

The bill passed by the Sejm awaits the president’s signature. – Only a veto will protect the honor of the president. Only vetoing this legal coup d’état, because it is a legal tumor, allows Mr. President to still be considered as someone who upholds the constitution and the laws of the Republic of Poland. Failure to fulfill this obligation actually puts the president outside the legal order of the state of which he is the head, said Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz.

“I can’t imagine a situation where the president would agree to a law that is not a law, it’s a coup d’état,” he added.

He stated that members of the Civic Coalition would not participate in the work of the commission if it was established. “We will not legalize something that is inherently illegitimate and anti-democratic,” he added. He added that the provisions of the act introduce “the whole mechanism of forcing people to participate in this commission” and legal analyzes are underway in the Civic Coalition in this case.

Sienkiewicz assessed that if Donald Tusk, by the decision of the commission, is deprived of the possibility of participating in the elections, “there will be no elections”, and the reason for introducing such a law, according to the guest of “Fakty po Faktach”, is the fact that Jaroslaw Kaczynski “he fears (Donald Tusk – ed.) and this is the main reason for the emergence of this legal tumor.”

– Democracy assumes that we can attack each other, but the rulers do not exclude their political opponents from the opposition from participating in the electoral process. (…) There can be no democracy in a country where the authorities say: you will not run because you are against us. The essence of democracy is that even though you are against us, you can stand with us in the electoral competition – he stressed.