Cassation Hearing Date Set in Kamiński and CBA Case
On June 6, the Supreme Court announced the date for the cassation hearing in the case involving Mariusz Kamiński and other former CBA leaders. The court’s press team informed PAP on Tuesday. The procedure had been suspended since the summer of 2017 and is now moving forward again.
The case has a long history spanning almost a decade. In March 2015, the Warszawa-Śródmieście District Court sentenced the former CBA chief Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik, who was his deputy at that time, to three years in prison for exceeding authority and mismanaging the CBA during the so‑called country scandal in 2007. Two other former CBA executives received prison terms of 2.5 years.
An Act of Grace
In November 2015, before the appeals were heard, the president granted pardons to all four unlawfully convicted individuals. In March 2016, the Supreme Court overturned the district court verdict, and given the president’s clemency, the case was legally discontinued. Assistant public prosecutors then filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court against that judgment.
The cassation procedure at the Supreme Court was suspended on August 1, 2017. The Supreme Court explained the suspension by referring the matter to the Constitutional Court to resolve a jurisdictional dispute over the president’s power to grant clemency and the Supreme Court’s binding interpretation of that power.
The dispute over powers was raised after the then Marshal of the Sejm, Marek Kuchciński, referred the matter to the Constitutional Tribunal in June 2017. The question concerned the nature of the president’s constitutional clemency authority and whether the Supreme Court held a binding interpretation of it.
Competency Disputes
The power dispute emerged following the Supreme Court’s late May 2017 ruling. Seven Supreme Court judges answered a question from the former cassation heads of the CBA, deciding that presidential pardons apply only to legally convicted individuals. The former CBA heads had not been legally convicted.
After Kuchciński sent the case to the Constitutional Tribunal, the Supreme Court paused the proceedings. The assistants’ prosecutors continued to seek resumption of the cassation, invoking procedural provisions that protect the legally recognized interests of the injured party. In July 2018, the Supreme Court did not grant that request.
Recent reports from Gazeta Wyborcza indicated the Supreme Court had officially started the cassation proceedings again.
The lack of a Constitutional Court ruling hinders the Supreme Court from fulfilling its constitutional adjudicative duties and affects the parties’ ability to exercise the right to a fair trial. This applies to both the assistant prosecutors who filed the cassation and the suspects involved in the case.
— the justification for this decision was noted by Gazeta Wyborcza in its coverage.
The adjournment of the case opened the way for a hearing date, which the Supreme Court subsequently set for June 6 of this year.
Constitutional Court Interpretations
In July 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled on a request from Attorney General Zbigniew Ziobro. The case was presented to the court shortly after the May 2017 Supreme Court resolution, which held that pardons apply only to those who have been validly convicted. The tribunal declared unconstitutional any exclusion of a pardon from penal provisions as a reason to bar further prosecution. It also affirmed that the president may exercise clemency before an ultimate conviction if appropriate.
The Supreme Court should resume and halt the suspended proceedings against the former CBA head Mariusz Kamiński, in light of the Constitutional Tribunal’s clear guidance on how pardon rights are understood.
— a statement attributed to the President of the Constitutional Court in public remarks.
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Source: wPolityce