On Tuesday, a cassation hearing will take place in the Supreme Court in the case of Mariusz Kamiński and other persons from the former management of the CBA. Three months ago, the Supreme Court resumed the proceedings – suspended since the summer of 2017. Last Friday, the Constitutional Court ruled in this case.
Conflict of Jurisdiction and the Pardon Act
The ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal in full court was made in the case of the dispute over powers that had started in 2017 between the President of the Republic of Poland and the Supreme Court regarding the right to a pardon. The case was related to the non-final verdict against Mariusz Kamiński and other persons from the former management of the CBA. In 2015, President Andrzej Duda pardoned the illegally convicted former heads of the CBA.
This case has a history of almost ten years. In March 2015, the District Court of Warsaw-Śródmieście convicted the former head of the Central Anti-Corruption Office, Kamiński (today the head of the Ministry of Interior and Administration) and Maciej Wąsik (Kamiński’s deputy at the Central Anti-Corruption Office at the time ; currently Deputy Minister of the Interior and Administrative Affairs) to 3 years imprisonment, among other things for exceeding authority and unlawful management of the CBA during the “country scandal” in 2007. Two other former members of the CBA’s management were sentenced after 2.5 years sentenced to prison terms.
In November 2015, before the District Court in Warsaw examined their appeals, President Andrzej Duda pardoned all four unlawfully convicted persons. In March 2016, the SO overturned the SR’s verdict and, given the President’s clemency, legally discontinued the case. The assistant public prosecutors have lodged an appeal in cassation with the Supreme Court against this judgment of the Supreme Court.
However, the cassation procedure at the Supreme Court in this case was suspended on 1 August 2017. The Supreme Court then motivated its decision by filing a case with the Constitutional Court concerning a jurisdictional dispute between the Supreme Court and the president about the right to a pardon.
The dispute over powers, which was referred to the Constitutional Tribunal by the then Marshal of the Sejm, Marek Kuchciński, in June 2017, concerned the nature of the President’s constitutional power to apply the power of clemency and whether the Supreme Court the jurisdiction may interpret this in a binding manner.
The issue of the power dispute arose following the ruling of the Supreme Court at the end of May 2017. At that time, seven judges of the Supreme Court – in response to a question from the Supreme Court that the former heads of cassation of the CBA – decided that the presidential pardon should only be applied to legally convicted persons. The former heads of the CBA have not been legally convicted.
“The application of the right to clemency before the date of the final judgment of the judgment has no procedural effect”
– also stated that resolution of the Supreme Court.
There is a ruling from the Constitutional Court
After the case was referred to the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court stayed the proceedings. The plenipotentiaries of the assistant prosecutors in the Kamiński case – despite the fact that the power dispute had not been settled in the Constitutional Court – subsequently requested that the suspended cassation proceedings be resumed. They referred to the procedural provision, which states that in criminal proceedings, among other things, to take into account the legally protected interests of the injured party. However, in July 2018, the Supreme Court did not accede to such a request.
However, in February and March The Supreme Court has reportedly started the cassation procedure ex officio.
“The absence of a ruling from the Constitutional Court prevents the Supreme Court from fulfilling its constitutional adjudicative duties and prevents the parties from exercising the constitutional right to a fair trial. This applies not only to assistant public prosecutors who have lodged a cassation appeal, but also to the suspects to whom this cassation appeal relates.
— the justification for this decision was quoted in “GW”.
The stay of the case cleared the way for a hearing in the Supreme Court. This hearing – as announced at the beginning of March – will take place on Tuesday 6 June this year.
On the other hand, on March 8 The President of the Constitutional Court, Julia Przyłębska, announced that the deadline for hearing the dispute over powers had been set. The Constitutional Tribunal finally ruled on this case on Friday 2 June.
As the Constitutional Tribunal ruled: “The right of clemency is the exclusive and unverifiable competence of the President of the Republic of Poland, which has final legal effect. At the same time, the Tribunal added that the Supreme Court has no power to review the president’s exercise of leniency.
In justifying Friday’s ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal, Judge Stanisław Piotrowicz said that the implementation of the Tribunal’s “final and universally binding” decision “is obligated to the Supreme Court to stop applying its resolution of May 2017.”
For the implementation of the decision of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court must close all proceedings under the decision of the Constitutional Court, taking into account the method of resolving the dispute of powers between the Supreme Court and the President
– emphasized Judge Piotrowicz.
In July 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled on the request of the Attorney General Zbigniew Ziobro. The GUT application was submitted to the Constitutional Tribunal just over a month after the May 2017 Supreme Court resolution, which recognized that the presidential pardon should only be applied to persons who have been validly convicted. In that judgment, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that not including an act of pardon in the penal provisions as a reason for inadmissibility of further prosecution of a criminal case is unconstitutional. At that time, the Tribunal also recognized that the President may exercise the right of clemency before the final conviction of the pardoned person.
The Supreme Court should resume and stop the suspended proceedings against the former head of the CBA Mariusz Kamiński, because the Constitutional Tribunal has clearly told the Supreme Court how the right to pardon is understood
– said the president of the Constitutional Court at the time, Julia Przyłębska.
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— The Constitutional Tribunal closes the discussion on the power dispute. There is a statement! “The law of pardon is the exclusive competence of the President of the Republic of Poland”
— President of the Constitutional Court: today’s ruling ends the dispute over powers. The right of leniency is the personal, exclusive prerogative of the president
olk/PAP
Source: wPolityce