Polish president says he has pardoned two jailed populist former politicians | CPT PPP Coverage

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Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, said he had pardoned two jailed politicians from the opposition populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which lost its majority in October elections, and called for their immediate release.

The former interior minister Mariusz Kami?ski and his ex-deputy, Maciej W?sik, were imprisoned this month after being detained in the presidential palace. Their arrests sparked large protests by PiS supporters and both began hunger strikes claiming to be “political prisoners”.

Originally convicted in 2015 for abuse of their authority while working at Poland’s Central Anticorruption Bureau nearly a decade earlier, the pair lost their appeals against the verdict last December and were sentenced to two years in prison.

Duda, who is closely aligned with the national-conservative PiS, originally pardoned them in 2015, allowing them to serve in the last government, but his decision was overturned by the supreme court on the grounds that it had been granted before a final appeal court ruling.

The president said soon after their imprisonment that he had started the process of pardoning them for a second time. “The decision regarding the pardon has been issued. Both men are pardoned,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“For me, they have always been pardoned, but taking into account the social unrest, I decided to initiate the new proceedings,” Duda added. “I appeal to the justice minister for the immediate release of both gentlemen from prison.”

Earlier on Tuesday the new justice minister, Adam Bodnar, who is also the prosecutor general, said the pair should not be pardoned, but his opinion is not binding on the president. Both were found guilty of masterminding a fake graft case to discredit a high-level rival politician.

PiS faces numerous accusations of subverting the rule of law, and Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, who has promised to restore EU democratic norms and unblock tens of billions of euros in EU funding over charges of democratic backsliding, is fighting an uphill battle to undo eight years of the party’s rule.

The new government’s early efforts to evict loyal nationalists from key roles and restore neutrality in the judiciary, media and other core state bodies have been criticised as illegal by leaders of the former government, with some Polish and international legal experts also expressing doubts.

The row over Kami?ski and W?sik highlights the judicial chaos in which Poland now finds itself, with PiS’s changes to the system – many of which have been ruled illegal by Polish and European judges – having resulted, in effect, in a dual legal regime.

Different courts – and sometimes even different chambers of the same court – have delivered contradictory rulings in the same cases.

Duda said his decision to pardon Kami?ski and W?sik for the second time was made out of concern for the health of the two jailed politicians, but also in response to the sentiment of a part of Polish society that supports PiS.