The government recommends continuing work on the Civic Coalition's project to disclose the assets of the spouses of key public office holders. This concerns the family of, among others, the president, prime minister, ministers, speakers of the Sejm and Senate, as well as MPs and senators.
There are two bills in the Sejm, both of which envisage amending the Act on restricting business activity by persons performing public functions and certain other acts. According to information on the website of the lower house, the bills have been sent for first reading in committees.
The first bill was submitted to the Sejm in November 2023. The solutions were proposed by a group of MPs from the Civic Coalition, the representative of the applicants is the vice-chairman of this club, Marek Sowa.
The second bill was submitted to the lower house on the initiative of MPs belonging to the Law and Justice club at the end of December. In this case, the representative of the applicants is Janusz Kowalski.
The government recommends continuing parliamentary work on the Civic Coalition's project, taking into account the received comments, the Government Information Center reported on Tuesday. At the same time, the government does not recommend further work on the PiS project, because – as indicated in the announcement – its most important solutions are included in the KO project.
Civic Coalition on asset declarations
The KO draft assumes that persons who hold the highest public functions would be required to submit declarations of their assets and disclose their spouse's separate assets. This obligation would include, among others: the president, speakers and deputy speakers of the Sejm and Senate, MPs and senators, prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers and councilors.
“According to the current legal status, in the event of separation of property, this type of separate property is not subject to the rules of open declarations of assets specified in the act amended by this project,” the authors pointed out in the justification attached to the project.
According to the proposal, presidents, vice-presidents and members of the management boards of companies with State Treasury shareholding would also be obliged to submit asset declarations, regardless of the size of their share in the company.
“The transparency of the management bodies of companies with State Treasury participation is particularly important due to limiting the possibilities of corruption and building oligarchic structures in the State,” said KO parliamentarians.
The government on differences in the Law and Justice project
CIR pointed out on Tuesday that PiS's project duplicates the solutions contained in the Civic Coalition's proposal, “adding that all presidents, vice-presidents and members of the management boards of companies with the participation of local government units would also be obliged to submit asset declarations.”
“In addition, persons who hold the most important state functions would have to, among others, attach to their asset declaration a copy of tax returns (PIT) from 10 years preceding the year of submitting the declaration. This obligation would apply to the President of the Republic of Poland, the Speakers of the Sejm and Senate, the Prime Minister and Ministers,” they explained. government representatives.
Main photo source: PAP/Radek Pietruszka