Law and Justice’s Volt on Lex Tusk. An unexpected declaration was made
Marek Ast, a member of the presidium of the PiS club, said that in the current term of office of the Sejm, it will not be possible to appoint a commission to investigate Russian influences. The law adopted in this matter is referred to as Lex Tusk. Ast added that the appointment of the committee would be the task of the Sejm of the next term.
The law establishing a commission to investigate Russian influence known as Lex Tusk came into force on the last day of May this year. The commission was to deal with the activities of public officials and senior management of state-owned companies and other persons who influenced Poland’s internal security in the years 2007-2022.
In the original form of the act, the commission’s powers included, among others: issuing a ban on performing functions related to the disposal of public funds for up to 10 years. The amendment proposed by Andrzej Duda abolished these rights. From now on, the committee could only consider that a given person does not guarantee proper performance of activities in the public interest. Moreover, after the presidential changes, parliamentarians would not be able to sit in the commission.
There will be no commission to investigate Russian influences for the time being
As it turns out, for the time being, the commission will not be formed at all. In an interview with the Polish Press Agency, Marek Ast said that the body would not be appointed in this term of office of the Sejm. He cited the changes proposed by Andrzej Duda as the reason.
“This resulted in a very short time for us to set up the commission. Elżbieta Witek did not decide to set a deadline for submitting candidatures. We know that the committee was supposed to start its activity in the current term of the Sejm and continue in the next term, so it will probably remain a task for the next term of the Sejm to implement this law and appoint the committee, explained the PiS politician.
When asked what caused the delay in submitting candidatures, the deputy explained that when the opposition announced that it would not submit its candidates, the marshal would be obliged to set another deadline for supplementing the committee.
– So you can already see here that there is no such possibility, because there will be no further meeting during the election campaign in September, so I think that the new composition of the High Chamber will select the members of the verification committee – he said.
