On Thursday evening, the Sejm rejected the Senate’s objection to the so-called abolition law, which provides for the cessation of prosecution for certain acts related to the organization of the elections of the President of the Republic of Poland, ordered on May 10, 2020.
232 delegates voted to reject the Senate’s objection, 216 opposed, and one person abstained. Now the law, which stipulates that criminal proceedings initiated but not concluded with a final verdict, will be stopped by the president.
The law provides for the non-initiation of proceedings and the cessation of criminal proceedings that have not been concluded with a final verdict for exceeding the powers of municipal heads, mayors and presidents of cities to submit the electoral roll to the post office during the presidential election during the lockdown in 2020. The law assumes that no proceedings will be initiated, but will be initiated “for an act committed during the epidemic”, consisting of providing a list of voters to the postal operator in connection with the ordered elections for the office of president.
Under the law, legally binding sanctions, compensatory measures and measures relating to the subjecting of the offender to trial, which have not been enforced in whole or in part, are unenforceable. The legal costs that have not been paid in full or in part by law are also not claimable. “Convictions for these acts shall be expunged by operation of law, and the record of conviction and parole of proceedings for these acts shall be removed from the national criminal record” – reads the law. The costs and fees associated with the implementation of the Act are borne by the Treasury. The Sejm passed the law at its December 1 session.
During work on these provisions in the Senate, opposition senators referred to the view that the law was unconstitutional. The senators pointed out that passing the law would de facto enable the legislature to take over the functions of the courts, violating the principle of the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary. As a result, the Senate voted to reject the bill in its entirety.
The presidential election was due to take place on May 10, 2020, during the COVID-19 epidemic in Poland. The government has planned that in this situation the elections will be held by mail only. Jacek Sasin, the Minister of State Assets, was responsible for organizing the vote, in accordance with the law of April 6 of that year on special rules for holding presidential elections ordered in 2020. In the end, however, this law only came into force on May 9 and the elections were postponed. Previously printed election packages; their delivery would be handled by Poczta Polska, using voter rolls obtained from local authorities.
Local government officials who handed over the voter rolls to Poczta Polska were informed by the prosecutor’s office, which pointed out that the municipalities’ executive authorities may have overstepped their powers. In March 2022, the Watchdog Polska Civic Network reported that the first ruling had been made in one of the cases initiated in this way – the district court in Wągrowiec ruled that the mayor of the municipality of Wapno exceeded his powers and acted without legal basis by providing voter data.
olk/PAP
Source: wPolityce