Hołownia reacts to the president’s words. “No amount of blackmail will change that.”

On Wednesday afternoon, President Andrzej Duda signed the budget act for the current year. However, this does not end her legal journey. Although it will enter into force, the president has decided to refer it to the Constitutional Tribunal as a post-control procedure.

The president’s decision results, as I read from the statement published by the Chancellery of the President, from “doubts related to the correctness of the procedure for adopting the above-mentioned acts, i.e. the inability of MPs Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik to participate in the work of the Sejm on these acts.

Donald Tusk has already commented on the referral of the budget to the Constitutional Tribunal. However, something else draws attention in the law firm’s announcement.

The president announces further actions

“Similar actions will be taken by the President of the Republic of Poland each time Members of Parliament are prevented from exercising their mandate resulting from general elections. It should be emphasized that the issue of the expiry of mandates was clearly decided by the Supreme Court. Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik are members of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland,” it was written.

This fragment directly refers to the absence during the adoption of the budget of two former MPs of Law and Justice – their mandates expired when they were convicted in a final judgment, and this fact was acknowledged by Szymon Hołownia with his signature – who were in prison at that time.

Szymon Hołownia talks about “the president’s blackmail”

The Speaker of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia, reacted to the president’s words. “The president stepped out of his bubble and into the nation for a moment and signed the budget. Then he returned to his world: his judges, his tribunals, his party. It’s good that he left, it’s a pity that he came back,” wrote the politician.

“No one here is waiting for the next episode of the saga about Kamiński and Wąsik. The court ruled that the gentlemen are not MPs and will not participate in the deliberations. Dot. No amount of blackmail by the President will change this,” he assured.

Analogy from 2016

Other politicians and publicists also drew attention to the inaccuracy of Andrzej Duda’s decision, citing, among others, the way in which Law and Justice passed the budget bill in 2016 in the Hall of Columns without the presence of a large number of parliamentarians.

However, the current situation is completely different. Now the mandates have expired due to a court conviction. Both Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik are not MPs from the moment they heard it, so they did not have to, or even could, participate in the work on the budget act. This will also be the case with all other acts.