On Monday, the Head of the Presidential Chancellery, Małgorzata Paprocka, announced that President Andrzej Duda had vetoed the incidental law. The bill, proposed by Poland 2050-TD and amended by the PSL-TD parliamentary group, stipulated that the validity of presidential elections would be determined by the 15 longest-serving judges of the Supreme Court, rather than by the Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs Chamber of the Supreme Court, as mandated by the current law on the Supreme Court. The legitimacy of this chamber is contested by the current ruling coalition.
Paprocka conveyed that the President refused to sign the bill for three reasons: opposition to interfering with judicial appointments, violation of the so-called legislative silence, and the creation of a specific political atmosphere surrounding presidential elections. Further details are provided below:
“I Will Persuade My Partners…”
Despite the President’s clear opposition, Speaker of the Sejm Szymon Hołownia does not intend to abandon the issue of the bill. He responded to Andrzej Duda’s veto on platform X, accusing the head of state of “deepening legal uncertainty regarding the presidential elections.”
“I will persuade coalition partners to seek other ways to avoid a state crisis,” he declared.
According to Hołownia, “Elections must be decided at the ballot box.”
Legal Uncertainty?
It is worth emphasizing that no legal uncertainty regarding the elections exists. The Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs Chamber of the Supreme Court has been in operation since 2017, and since then, it has adjudicated matters related to presidential, local government, European Parliament, and parliamentary elections in Poland. Thanks to its rulings, members of the current government hold power.
The questioning of the chamber’s status began when it ordered the Minister of Finance to disburse a previously blocked subsidy to the Law and Justice Party.