How PIS (Law and Justice party) destroyed Poland, democracy and the rule of law
Intro
The current government is destroying the country from inside-out with its nepotism, religious zeal, communistic tactics, social programs and funding verge organizations (or trolls).
Too few Europeans are aware of the depth of this crisis. The current polish government is destroying the country from inside-out with its nepotism, religious zeal, communistic tactics, social programs and funding verge organizations (or trolls). It breaks every single law, making unconstitutional laws since 2015 and destroying the court of law. How Poland is pushing EU into crisis — rise of populism. The video is 2 years old and now it’s worst
PIS staffed every single judicial court with its own people (ending the impartiality of judges). The very aggressive social 500+ program increased the job inactivity of Poles to 48% (48% of 15+ Polish citizens are NEET. Unemployment is at 5–6%). The Job vacancies in Poland are at the lowest level in EU. The corruption and nepotism are rampant, more than 1000 family members and friends are in public companies or in different Ministries. Polish PIS high ranking politicians are also making money together with pimps and mafia (see scandals down there). They are also giving millions of euros from public money to the Catholic Church. They are paying trolls to spew hate on Facebook, via Whatsapp and on the web. Some of them are hiding and not prosecuting pedophiles in the Catholic Church. Poland has almost the lowest innovation in EU. In 15 indexes tracking freedom and democracy in Europe Poland went from an average position of 12 out of 28 in 2010 to 23 out of 28 in 2019. I mean, not to diminish Trump’s “awesomeness” but imagine if the WHOLE republican party in the US was Trump-like.
For further reading I recommend: Sadurski, Wojciech. “Poland’s Constitutional Breakdown”, Oxford University Press, 2019.
Acronyms and main characters:
- PIS- current govt, Law and Justice, a Far-right party with socialist programs. Majority in Parliament and the President is from PIS
- PO- Civil Platform, main opposition, center. Majority in Senate.
- J. Kaczynski, PIS leader, Twin brother of the dead Polish president
- Z. Ziobro, General Prosecutor and Minister of Justice. PIS
- M. Banas, Head of the Supreme Audit office. PIS
- D. Tusk, Ex-leader of PO, ex-prime minister, ex-president of the Europ. Council, now- leader of the European EPP party
- M. Morawiecki, Prime minister. PIS
- T. Rydzyk Roman Catholic priest and Redemptorist, founder and director of the conservative Radio Maryja station and tv TRWAM
- J. Kurski, chairman of the Polish national state broadcaster TVP. PIS
- A. Duda, President. PIS
- M. Kuchcinski, ex-Marshal of the lower house. PIS
- B. Szydlo, ex-prime minister. PIS
PiS changes electoral rules in an unconstitutional move. Presidential “elections” 2020 are the Biggest legal blunder of the year
(This section was edited in July 2020)
Why Poland’s “ghost election” sends a warning about its democracy
The Timeline:
- Pis doesn’t want to declare a constitutional state of emergence or state of natural disaster because it would postpone the elections. So they declared a state of epidemic that doesn’t allow to limit the freedom of movement or other liberties Ombudsman opinion
- At first, PiS decided to hold the presidential elections on 10 May despite the public outcry at holding elections at the height of a pandemic. The adoption of generalised voting by post by the Polish parliament, about one month before the planned elections, violates several constitutional standards. It breaches a prohibition on making changes to the electoral law less than six months before an election and a ban on hiding new laws under the guise of amendments to an existing draft.
- Then PiS has excluded a key institution from the process of preparing the elections: the National Electoral Commission (PKW), which can no longer print the voting cards. On the 17th of April president Andrzej Duda signed a bill depriving the PKW of the powers to organise elections
- So in a particularly Kafkaesque twist, the ministry appointed J. Sasin, one of the MP, to organize the elections and he printed 30M ballots before the special election legislation was even signed into law. For months there was a ballot hunt to know where the ballots are stored. 70 million zloty bill for Poland’s abandoned presidential election
- At 02:26 am on 23 April, every Polish mayor and city council president received an anonymous, unsigned e-mail from Polish Post saying that they were required to deliver the private data of 30 million Polish citizens including their PESEL (national identification number), date of birth, address, and other private data in a .txt file format lacking any passwords or security. But local governments, which hold that data, are refusing to hand it over, arguing that the postal service has no legal right to get the files.
- On 29 April 2020, 11 days before the planned election date, election candidate Żółtek presented a copy of an “unlawful” electoral ballot at a press conference. It had NO securities to prevent counterfeit copies (reminder: As of 2 May 2020, Polish law did not authorise Poczta Polska to organise postal voting nor printing of ballots) . Poczta Polska notified the Internal Security Agency about the leak. But how to prove something that shouldn’t exist? So many trolls just printed the copy and put it in mailboxes and on the street Picture of police trying to see if this is a copy or not of an illegal ballot
- 4 days before the election, “Simply put, in a democratic country, the government decided — consciously — not to organise the election of the head of state.” Collapse of Polish democracy “What happened with this agreement is truly unprecedented: the presidential election in Poland was not postponed, it was just cancelled,”. As the leaders reached their agreement, no constitutional institution was involved in the process, including the electoral commission, the president, the Sejm and the Supreme Court — the latter was meant to cancel the election according to the letter of the document. However, the two politicians could be certain that their agreement, although un-constitutional, would prove effective because of the complete take-over of the Supreme Court by the Law and Justice nominees since the beginning of May following the expiry of the term of the former President of the Supreme Court Małgorzata Gersdorf. Still, it is highly unusual for the leaders of political parties to openly state what the Supreme Court would decide. Source
- 3 days before the election, the National Electoral Commission (PKW) — controlled by PIS since a month- declared that the election would not be able to take place on 10 May 2020 because there were no candidates???!!! Source So the candidates will need to ONCE again collect 100k signatures to be eligible to be candidates.
- On 3 June 2020, the Marshal of the Sejm, Elżbieta Witek, ordered the first round of the election to be held on 28 June 2020.
- And now the cherry on top. Elections on 28 june 2020 are UNCONSTITUTIONAL why? art 128.2 of the constitution: “The election of the President of the Republic shall be ordered by the Marshal of the Sejm to be held on a day no sooner than 100 days and no later than 75 days before expiry of the term of office of the serving President of the Republic, and in the event of the office of President of the Republic falling vacant — no later than the 14th day thereafter(…)”. June 28 was 70 days before the expiry. So the next election must be announced within 14 days after the office of president is vacated. So the Speaker of the Sejm can announce new elections AT THE EARLIEST after 6th of August. source
- The whipped-cream on top of the cherry? These elections are not free, not secret and not for everyone. They are not free because the electoral commission is controlled by PIS, they are not secret because if you vote via post you need to sign the ballot with your name + the attached envelope is see-trough. 14 sins of ballot elections Voter suppression: Old, pregnant and people with kids on their arms can vote first
- My own opinion — As PIS controls all courts, if Duda loses, they will announce it was an unconstitutional election (truth) but if he wins, PKW controlled by PIS will approve the election.
Destruction of the rule of law.
Some of the passages below are taken from this pdf
No member state in the history of the EU has ever gone as far in subjugating its courts to executive control as the current Polish government. The Polish case has become a test whether it is possible to create a Soviet-style justice system in an EU member state; a system where the control of courts, prosecutors and judges lies with the executive and a single party.
Too few Europeans are aware of the depth of this crisis. Across Europe, national courts recognize the judgments of courts in other member states, whether these involve commercial law, the European arrest warrant or child custody. Judges must assume that courts across the EU operate according to common values and principles set out in the European Union Treaty and in its Charter of Fundamental Rights. Once judges across the EU have reason to doubt whether courts in any member state provide effective judicial protection, the legal order on which the EU rests collapses.
Freedom house — How PIS captured Poland’s Courts Similar to what happened in the US and Trump’s overtaking of the judiciary, happened in Poland.
Constitutional Tribunal changes
It all began with the constitutional crisis four years ago. Constitutional crisis and the destruction of the rule of law In 2015, parliament changed the law on the Constitutional Tribunal, which rules on the constitutionality of legislation. The changes allowed them to annul the nominations of three judges made by the previous parliament and appoint their own. It shortened the terms of the tribunal’s president and vice-president from nine to three years. The tribunal ruled the move unconstitutional in an open rebellion, but the dispute remains unresolved. Julia Przylebska — was illegally named the president of the Tribunal court by the president.
There’s too much to describe. For further info please visit the link. It is an amazing summary of the whole ordeal. timeline and another Great freedomhouse report.
Supreme Court changes
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said one of the most controversial reforms was to do with the Supreme court, which, among other duties, is responsible for confirming election results. The idea was to lower the age of retirement for Supreme Court justices from 70 to 65, but allow the Polish president to grant a five-year extension to whomever they deemed worthy. In 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) — the EU’s highest court — ruled this was illegal, after an interim decision ordered 20 already-sacked judges be reinstated. Of course, PIS chose 2 new Constitutional judges, A politician Pawlowicz with communistic past and Piotrowicz, also a politician and a prosecutor that was an active communist during the 80 that prosecuted Solidarnosc. Both of them are above 65 years old.
Ordinary court judges
There were also moves to try a similar tactic in the general court system for judges and public prosecutors, lowering the age of retirement for women to 60 and for men to 65, down from the current 67. Under the reforms the justice minister, who is appointed by the ruling party, would have the power to extend a judge’s term. The laws were somewhat adjusted after pressure from the European Commission, but in November 2019 the ECJ shot down these laws, too, citing gender discrimination and political influence over the judiciary.
Disciplinary measures for judges
Another PiS addition allowed judges to be investigated and sanctioned for their court rulings. The disciplinary hearings and procedures were to be carried out by judges selected via parliament. These reforms were criticized by the European Commission because “judges are not insulated from political control and thus judicial independence is violated.” The commission brought legal action against Poland on this matter in October 2019.
National Council of the judiciary takeover
In 2017 PiS remodelled the National Council of the Judiciary, which selects candidates for appointment as judges by the President of the Republic. This allowed it, in the short term, to control appointments to the Supreme Court — including to a newly created Disciplinary Chamber, which hears disciplinary cases against judges, and to a new Extraordinary Appeals Chamber, which adjudicates on electoral issues. Over time PiS’ take-over of the National Judicial Council allows it to reshape the entirety of the judiciary. Fifteen of the 25 members of the National Council of the Judiciary were previously elected by judges themselves, as is common practice across Europe for such bodies. These fifteen judges are now elected by the majority in the Sejm, the lower chamber of the Polish parliament. The other ten members of the National Council of the Judiciary are: four members from the Sejm itself (all four members of PiS), two members from the Senate, one representative of the President of the Republic, the Minister of Justice, the president of the Supreme Court and the president of the Supreme Administrative Court. In total 23 of the 25 positions are directly appointed by political authorities.
After the election of the new KRS, a publication of the list with the names of judges declaring their support for specific candidates was refused. The Supreme Administrative Court ruled that those names must be disclosed. However, the Chancellery of the Sejm has yet to carry out the NSA’s ruling. The Constitutional Tribunal and the President of the Personal Data Protection Office have been roped into guarding the secret. KRS destruction
Restructuring the courts
Ahead of the 2019 election, the PiS proposed restructuring the court system. The justice minister said the country had four levels of courts that could be reduced to three. Critics said this could allow the government to reappoint most judges and get rid of undesirable ones through forced retirement or by sending them to distance appointments.
Muzzle bill
the muzzle bill passed last month (in Sejm, rejected by PO’s Senate, now signed into law by PIS President Duda), victimize judges questioning the legitimacy of the government’s legal appointments, saying it is unlawful to “show hostility to other authorities of the Republic of Poland and its constitutional organs or to criticize the basic principles of the Republic of Poland.” The bill also delegalize the preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). The bill allows firing judges (it is unconstitutional)
One of the worse Covid19 laws in EU.
Trampling Fundamental freedoms using a single ordnance and Critiquing the President will land you a year in jail. report.
In the latest special Covid19 law (already 4th lol) PIS smuggled an article straight from a communistic playbook about prosecuting people that critique the president. The sentence can be up to a year. They also smuggled a harsher law for abortions. Can someone tell me HOW it is related to Covid19? source
More Ruleoflaw
Political scandals
Illegal pardon
Illegal presidential pardon for CBA chief Kaminski In 2013, Law and Justice (PiS) MP Mariusz Kamiński — who served as head of the anti-corruption agency from 2006 and 2009 — was found guilty of overstepping his powers. He was sentenced to three years in prison and was banned from holding public office for ten years. Polish President Andrzej Duda pardoned Kamiński even though he was still appealing his sentence at the time. The case against Kamiński was then discontinued. A supreme court judge said that the president interfered in the legal process because Kamiński was proven neither innocent nor guilty when he was pardoned, making a future ruling redundant. The judge said that the president can pardon someone after any final appeal has been heard “because then he is not interfering with the judiciary”.
Merging the General Prosecutor with the Minister of Justice
The general prosecutor role was merged with the minister of justice Ziobro. source. This handed Ziobro and his subordinates greatly expanded power to politically interfere with rank-and-file prosecutors, their decisions, and their freedoms of speech and association. Poland Is Purging Its Prosecutors
200+ public prosecutors that are loyal to the Minister of Justice Ziobro (from PIS) All of them got promotions (or someone from their family) or pay raises. another list
The Ministry of Justice and Ziobro is paying trolls to destroy judges
Ziobro-Piebiak paid Troll scandal The Onet news portal published a report alleging that Deputy Justice Minister Łukasz Piebiak “arranged and controlled” an online campaign against Judge Krystian Markiewicz, the head of Iustitia, a judicial organization critical of the government’s efforts to restructure the judicial system, as well as against other inconvenient judges. According to the Onet report, Piebiak operated and financed an online campaign by a woman called Emilia who allegedly sent over 2,000 letters and emails about Markiewicz to other judges as well as to pro-government right-wing media. The messages contained fabricated, semi-confirmed and gossipy details of the judge’s personal life. According to Onet, Emilia obtained Markiewicz’s personal address from Piebiak so she could send him one of the letters.
Destroying the military
The creation of a territorial defense unit- a civilian army led by the ministry of defense to control “the situation inside Poland”. In addition, there was a purge of generals. and killing multibillion deals with France. About 37 generals and 47 colonels left. Why? Because they had to answer to a 27-year old assistant to the Defense Minister, former pharmacy assistant without a university degree. The Rzeczpospolita daily newspaper reported that Misiewicz was given a top communications job with PGZ ( largest defense consortiums in Central Europe) that pays $12,500 a month, huge sum in a country where the average pre-tax wage is about $1,150 a month. source
PIS decides to overhaul 40-years old t-72 instead of investing in German tanks. Not enough ammunition, uniforms NVG and other gadget went to the above unit,
In 2015, the Defence minister Macierewicz raided the Nato center in Warsaw at 1am to take control of documents and place their man at the helm
Taking over the state media
State media was taken over by PIS and is using mass propaganda and here Not only they are a propaganda tube but they also offend polish citizens ie — translation: defenders of pedophiles and alimonies-takers are the ones against judiciary reforms. They call every peaceful protest as a coup.
Polish public TV stations should be impartial and public. Not favoring any party nor government and give the same screen time to every party equally. Unfortunately, there was a purge of journalists the moment PIS won the election and the propaganda is stalin-like. Look at this graph how it changed. Polish TVP is the mouthpiece of the govt. In 2020 PIS voted to give an additional 2B pln per year for 5 years to public tv.
Public Main TV making fun of US ambassador by reading her tweet with a derogatory accent
The same can be said about the GUS — general statistical bureau. It is controlled by PIS and it is known to “change” metrics so every Inflation or unemployment metric can’t be trusted.
LBGT-free zones and Xenophobia.
Fear against refugeesand calls for xenophobia. A leaked draft of a new Polish migration policy discriminates against Muslims, ranks foreigners according to ethnicity and breaches human rights
PIS is supporting LGBT free zones where a third of Poland is declared as LGBT-free. During the presidential elections in 2020 Gay “ideology” is worse than communism, says Duda — PIS president. another source
10 minutes movie about Homophobia in Poland — 2020 presidential elections
Destroying education and HealthCare.
PIS cancels the in vitro program. Polish government program that covered most of the in vitro costs was immediately cut by the Law and Justice Party when it came to power in late 2015, even though Poland has one of the lowest birth rates in the EU. Catholic Church opposition to IVF is widely seen as one factor in the Polish government’s decision.
PIS also increased the minimum wage at the beginning of 2020. It created a weird paradox where a teacher and a starting MD is earning less than the minimal wage because they get paid from public money and the minimal wage change is for the private sector. And PIS wants to ban sex ed by labeling teachers as gay activists and pedophiles. Critics say Poland’s governing Law and Justice Party is wrecking the education system for political gain — and students are suffering.
No one cares for the environment.
Destruction of the oldest European forest in Poland by Minister of Environment Szyszko
The Bialowieza Forest is a UNESCO World Heritage site that sprawls across the border between Poland and Belarus, occupying almost 580 square miles of woodland and providing home to rare European wood bison among others. At least 10,000 trees are thought to have been felled in Białowieża, since the Polish environment minister, Jan Szyzko tripled logging limits there in 2016. The EU’s highest court has ruled that Poland’s logging in the Unesco-protected Białowieża forest is illegal, potentially opening the door to multi-million euro fines.
Nepotism and colleagues in state-owned companies
PIS won the elections by wanting to fight nepotism. The most famous was “24yo Misiewicz, a former pharmacy assistant without a university degree was in the defense industry under Macierewicz. The apparent favoritism has raised ethics concerns in a party that won office promising to fight corruption.” source There is even a webpage listing more than 1000 cases of nepotism under PIS Misiewicze.
There is even a webpage listing more than 1000 cases of nepotism under PIS Pisiewicze
Glapinski’s Angels. Adam Glapiński is a long-time friend and ally of Poland’s de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński, which is why he was given the job of running the country’s central bank. The scandal involves two of Glapiński’s senior aides. Polish media calculated their salaries and claimed that the bank’s director of communications and promotion, Martyna Wojciechowska, makes around 65,000 zlotych per month (over €15,000), 13 times the national average and more than the country’s president. The media also claimed that another National Bank of Poland (NBP) employee, Kamila Sukiennik, who manages Glapiński’s office, is also on the board of the Central Securities Depository — the financial instruments regulator — despite having no formal qualifications for the job.
The “so cruel” Ex-communists are in fact PIS members
They are accusing the opposition — PO — to consist mostly of ex-communists or communistic party members or collaborators. The issue is that most members of PO fought against communism and spent months/years in prison in the ’80. On the other hand, the PIS party members scarcely fought for polish liberty and some of its party members are former communistic party members or communistic prosecutors like Piotrowicz! or Polish CT judge. Here is a list in polish of all current PIS party members who served as PRL members during the communistic era. So, PIS is fighting against itself.
Illegal budget for 2017
The 2017 budget “was adopted” not in the Sejm assembly hall, but in a smaller room where the so-called parliamentary session was held immediately as a follow-up to the meeting of the parliamentary causus of PIS, where no reliable counting of vates was possible, and with many allegations taht the opposition MPs were not allowed in. [Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?, Oxfoord, 2018, p.268]
Ex-communists in PIS ranks. And PIS is very anti-left and anti-PRL.
They are accusing the opposition — PO — to consist mostly of ex-communists or communistic party members or collaborators. The issue is that most members of PO fought against the communism and spent months/years in prison in the ’80. On the other hand, the PIS party members scarcely fought for polish liberty and some of its party members are former communistic party members or communistic prosecutors like Piotrowicz! Some Polish TC judge are also ex-PRL members. Here is a list in polish of all current PIS party members who served as PRL members during the communistic era. So, PIS is fighting against itself. Another list with 20 names of ex-party members now in PIS
Funding the Catholic church with public money
PIS is very Pro-Catholic, most of their voters are devout Catholics. So it is no surprise that PIS is funding religious orgs from public money. Since Law and Justice came to power in 2015, Father Rydzyk’s businesses have received at least $55 million in subsidies from at least 10 ministries and state companies. His Radio Maryja station, which reaches millions and is often the sole source of information for many older voters in rural Poland, offers a daily diet of horror stories about a world without faith, where gay people control the political agenda, universities are corrupted by “neo-Marxists,” and the Roman Catholic Church is under mortal threat. Rydzyk Embroiled in Corruption Allegations
Hiding Pedophilia. Map of 259 victims of catholic pedophilia. When a documentary was released before recent local elections revealing devastating examples of how priests sexually abused children and how church officials covered it up, many in PIS saw it not as evidence of an institution that lost its way, but one that needed to be defended. Piotrowicz, the above communist prosecutor, dismissed in 2001 a case against a priest accused of raping six girls.
Smolensk commission
The so-called assassination of Kaczynski’s twin president brother in Smolensk created 90M PLN of costs. PIS created a “cult” around his death and even created a special commission that would prove it was an assassination. Kaczynski was using it on every occasion Don’t wipe your treacherous mugs with …. Ofc they didn’t prove anything and they buried the topic. Every 10th of every month for 3 years, PIS party leader Kaczynski was making a “show” commemorating his dead twin brother. He was using the police to secure his demonstration even if he has no lawful power (he is neither a president, neither the prime minister). New law expanding police surveillance and the police is getting raises after raises to keep them happy. The commemorations, the commission and the damages (paid only to the politicians’ families, not to the crew) amounted to 91M PLN.
The welfare revolution
PIS is also very pro-family. The party is giving away 500zl per month for every kid. In short, it has “bought” the elections. The Polish economy is unable to sustain such an endeavor; roots of populism. And it costs the economy 80B PLN between 2016 and 2019. The best part? The rate of births is negative for the last couple of years and inflation is still growing. According to the PIS Stats bureau, it is 3.5% and growing. However, many journalists made their own baskets of normal good and services and the inflation is closer to 10%. Additionally there is a growing debt that PIS tries to hide by shifting some debt into other Funds. One of them is the “Solidarity fund” that is not counted in the overall polish GDP, that is to support people with disabilities will pay for the 13th and 14th pension of people 65+.
Funding propaganda and trolls
Computational Propaganda in Poland: Russian troll factories
PIS bought the Pegasus spyware to spy on its citizens
In September 2018, private broadcaster TVN24 reported that Poland’s state audit body, NIK, was questioning an outlay of over 33 million zloty (€7.6 million euro) by the Justice Fund, a government fund to help victims of crime. According to TVN, the money went toward the purchase of a “new system to spy on telephones and computers, the most expensive system in the history of Polish secret services.” Reports that the covertly purchased system could be Pegasus — a top-performing spyware that is impossible to track — surfaced last week.
Polish troll farms promoting Duda and Kaczynski
Scandals
PIS has hundreds of scandals that each would destroy a modern government. They defrauded billions of PLN over the years, put 1000’s of family members in different state-owned companies. Below are listed the main sexual and financial scandals.
- Sex hotel Banas scandal Marian Banaś , a Law and Justice (PiS) politician and recently appointed chief of Poland’s Supreme Audit Office has been heavily embroiled in a corruption scandal, another to hit the ruling party just weeks before the country votes in a parliamentary election. Mr Banaś served as finance minister from June to August this year, and is a key figure in the party. Mr Banaś concealed his possession of a tenement house in Krakow from his financial disclosures. This property was then revealed to have deep running connections with a local, criminally-run escort agency. He claimed that the house was given to him by an old friend whom he met in the Home Army, which he then renovated. In his disclosures he claimed he would sell the house, which never happened. Banaś claims that this was due to the buyer’s inability to get a loan. Investigations have further revealed that Mr Banaś agreed to rent the property for 5000 zloty a month, 10,000 zloty lower than its estimated market value, according to Gazeta Wyborcza. Just as the scandal could not apparently get any worse for Mr Banaś, further investigation by journalist Bertold Kittel revealed criminal links. When Mr Kittel entered the property he found at the reception an infamous Krakow criminal known as one of the brothers K — Wiesław or Janusz, who control escort agencies in the region. While still under investigation, there have been suggestions of contact between the two.
- “Alleged” Paedophila and Sex trafficking scandal with Kuchcinski Wirtualna Polska learned the contents of the message of CBA officer Wojciech J. to the prosecutor’s office about the failure of the head of the CBA, Ernest Bejda. In the background is a lost record with a recording of one of the leading PiS politicians who should have sex with a minor Ukrainian girl lost. His name falls on the document. In the message, Wojciech J. refers to several reports that he was the head of the office in connection with the “unauthorized access to his armored cabinet during his absence” submitted. From this vault, a record should be lost in escort agencies from the Podkarpacie region. One of the leading PiS politicians should have sex with a young Ukrainian in the recording. The statement signed by lawyer Beata Bosak-Kruczek mentions the name of Sejm spokesman Marek Kuchciński.
- Health minister Szumowski alleged to have bought £1m of PPE from ski instructor friend during pandemic. And givng away £65m grants to companies run by brother public anger has exploded after Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that Szumowski bought masks with fake certificates from a skiing instructor who is friends with his businessman brother, Marcin. Poland’s Health Ministry reportedly spent five million zloty (£1m) on 120,000 FFP-2 type face masks and 20,000 surgical masks that were later found not to meet safety standards, Politico says. The company that sold the masks was registered on the 30 of March and won the govt. contract on the same day. Critics have also questioned Szumowski’s previous dealings in government. Polish news network tvn24 reports that while serving as deputy science minister in 2016–17, he gave 300 million zloty (£60m) in grants from Poland’s National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) to OncoArendi Therapeutics, a research company run by his brother. Another company in which Szumowski was a shareholder, Life Science Innovation (LSI), was reportedly given a 24 million zloty (£5m) NCBR grant just days after he took up the ministerial post.
- Same Health minister Szumowski bought 1.2 thousand ventilators for PLN 200 million from a company owned by an arms dealer, not a single device was delivered
- Again Szumowski, bought tests for 125M pln and they were never shipped. PIS is not commenting the scandal
- And once again Szumowski. His wife got research grants.
- KNF scandal — Leszek Czarnecki, owner of Getin Noble Bank, has claimed(you can find tapes) that Marek Chrzanowski, chairman of Poland’s Financial Supervision Authority (KNF), used a private meeting to suggest the bank hire a specific lawyer and pay him a fee worth the equivalent of 1 per cent of the bank’s market capitalisation in exchange for “support . . . and protection” from the regulator, in an official deposition made by Mr Czarnecki to Polish prosecutors and seen by the Financial Times. There are tapes and you clearly hear the chairman
- SKOK scandal — Cooperative savings banks and credit unions were not included in the banks, so that only after the introduction of the law in 2012, the checks initiated by the Polish Financial Supervisory Authority of credit unions began. After audits, it was found that 44 out of 55 existing savings banks do not meet the requirements. This situation directly threatened the finances of people who had taken out loans or loans from credit unions or entrusted their money. After 2014 controls, 13 credit unions collapsed and around 250,000 people died as a result of their bankruptcy. According to the Business Insider, the bank guarantee fund has so far paid them nearly PLN 4 billion 335 million.
- SREBNA-KACZYNSKI scandal. The company in question, Srebrna, was founded in the mid-1990s by the conservative Porozumienie Centrum (PC) party, a forerunner to the PiS. The company is majority-owned by the Lech Kaczynski Institute, which was founded to commemorate the eponymous Polish president who died in a 2010 plane crash. Lech Kaczynski’s twin brother Jaroslaw is on the institute’s supervisory board. When Srebrna decided to erect two skyscrapers in central Warsaw, Jaroslaw Kaczynski signed off on the project. The Lech Kaczynski Institute was to move its headquarters to one of the towers and the remaining space was to be rented out. One-third of the annual revenue generated by the buildings would then go to the Lech Kaczynski Institute. A relative of Kaczynski’s cousin, Austrian businessman Gerd Birgfellner, was tasked with bringing the €400 million ($460 million) project to fruition. To this end, Poland’s state-run PKO Bank Polski apparently granted Birgfellner a €15.5 million loan. Without a permit, he then invested €1.5 million into the project, assuming Kaczynski would greenlight it as planned. But when Birgfellner asked to be reimbursed, Srebrna declined to foot the bill, as Jaroslaw Kaczynski had decided to stop the project.
- Morawiecki scandal. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki used his personal ties with a key figure of the country’s Catholic Church and town hall officials in Wroclaw for a huge business gain that he kept away from the public’s eye, the leading Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported on May 20. The newspaper quotes documents to prove Morawiecki paid just PLN700,000 (€172,800 in 2002 prices) for 15 hectares of land, which the Wroclaw diocese had received from the Polish state in 1999. The land’s market price was assessed at PLN4mn at the time. After the PM bought the land, it was zoned to enable construction of an important throughway as well as commercial real estate such as offices. Morawiecki signed over the ownership of the land to his wife in 2013, the newspaper also claimed. The PM never mentioned the transaction or the ownership of the land in mandatory declarations of financial interests that public officials are obliged to submit and make public. The entire land the Morawieckis own is currently worth around PLN70mn, Gazeta Wyborcza claims on the basis of a survey of local land prices.
- PFN scandal A lavishly funded Polish organization dedicated to improving the country’s international image is trying to rescue its own reputation. The Polish National Foundation, founded in 2016 and financed to the tune of 400 million złoty (€93 million) from the country’s leading state-run corporations, was supposed to combat the deluge of bad press about the country’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. The foundation hasn’t been willing to say much about its finances in Poland, but the online news portal Onet dug through financial statements made in Washington by a U.S. lobbying firm hired by the Polish organization. Onet reported that the White House Writers Group, a Washington PR firm, has been paid $5.5 million since 2017 to raise Poland’s profile in the U.S. — a sum similar to the annual budget of the Polish Embassy in Washington. A YouTube site set up for the foundation had 13 subscribers as of Tuesday, with mostly fewer than 10 views per video. An Instagram account with stock images of Poland had 51 observers. And even some of those images were wrong. A picture of a sunset over the Polish capital turned out to be of Prague. A photo of ski jumping champion Kamil Stoch was of an acrobatic ski jumper — a completely different sport.
