On Tuesday, a cassation hearing is scheduled in the Supreme Court concerning Mariusz Kamiński and other former leaders of the Central Bureau of Anti-Corruption. Three months earlier, the Supreme Court resumed proceedings that had been paused since the summer of 2017. The Constitutional Court delivered its ruling in this matter last Friday.
Conflict of Jurisdiction and the Pardon Act
The full bench of the Constitutional Tribunal issued a decision in a dispute over powers that began in 2017 between the President of the Republic of Poland and the Supreme Court regarding the prerogative of pardon. The case concerns the non-final verdict against Mariusz Kamiński and other former heads of the Central Anti-Corruption Office (CBA). In 2015, President Andrzej Duda granted pardons to the unlawfully convicted former CBA leaders.
The case spans nearly a decade. In March 2015, the District Court of Warsaw-Śródmieście found Kamiński, then head of the CBA, and Maciej Wąsik, his deputy at the time, guilty of exceeding authority and mismanaging the CBA during the so-called country scandal in 2007, sentencing both to prison terms of three years. Two other former CBA managers received sentences of about 2.5 years.
In November 2015, prior to the district court’s consideration of their appeals, President Duda pardoned all four individuals. In March 2016, the Supreme Court overturned the district court’s verdict and, citing the President’s clemency, effectively discontinued the case. Prosecutors appealed that decision to the Supreme Court in cassation.
However, the cassation process in this case was suspended on 1 August 2017. The Supreme Court later explained its suspension by referring the matter to the Constitutional Court, seeking to resolve the jurisdictional dispute regarding the President’s clemency powers.
The power dispute, referred to the Constitutional Tribunal by then-Speaker of the Sejm Marek Kuchciński in June 2017, questioned the President’s constitutional authority to grant clemency and whether the Supreme Court could interpret that power in a binding manner.
The issue followed a May 2017 ruling by the Supreme Court. Seven Supreme Court judges concluded that presidential clemency should apply only to persons who have been legally convicted, while the former CBA heads had not yet received a final conviction.
“The application of clemency before a final judgment has no procedural effect,” stated the Supreme Court’s resolution.
There is a ruling from the Constitutional Court
After sending the case to the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court paused its proceedings. Even though the power dispute had not yet been resolved by the Court, assistant prosecutors sought to resume the suspended cassation proceedings, invoking procedural provisions designed to protect the rights of injured parties. In July 2018, the Supreme Court rejected that request.
Nevertheless, in February and March, the Supreme Court reportedly began the cassation process ex officio.
“The absence of a ruling from the Constitutional Court prevents the Supreme Court from fulfilling its constitutional duties and hinders parties from exercising the right to a fair trial. This applies not only to assistant prosecutors who have filed cassation appeals, but also to the suspects involved in those appeals.”
— the justification for this decision was cited in GW.
The stay of the case cleared the way for a hearing in the Supreme Court. This hearing, announced at the start of March, is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 6 June this year.
Meanwhile, on 8 March the President of the Constitutional Court, Julia Przyłębska, announced a deadline for resolving the power dispute. The Constitutional Tribunal issued its ruling on the matter on Friday 2 June.
According to the Constitutional Tribunal, the right of clemency is the exclusive and verifiable prerogative of the President of the Republic of Poland, carrying final legal effect. The Tribunal also stated that the Supreme Court has no power to review the President’s exercise of leniency.
In explaining Friday’s ruling, Judge Stanisław Piotrowicz noted that implementing the Tribunal’s final and universally binding decision requires the Supreme Court to suspend its May 2017 resolution. The Supreme Court must then close all ongoing proceedings in light of the Tribunal’s decision and the ongoing dispute over powers between the Court and the President.
As emphasized by Judge Piotrowicz, the Constitutional Court’s ruling in July 2018 responded to a request from the Attorney General. The court held that not including a pardon act in penal provisions as a reason to halt further prosecution is unconstitutional, and it recognized that the President may exercise clemency before a final conviction of the pardoned individual.
The expectation is that the Supreme Court should resume and conclude the suspended proceedings against Mariusz Kamiński, reflecting the Constitutional Tribunal’s clarified understanding of the pardon power.
The president of the Constitutional Court at the time, Julia Przyłębska, underscored that the ruling marks a resolution of the power dispute and clarifies the scope of presidential leniency and its independence from judicial review.