The Political Committee of Law and Justice (PiS) will not make any decisions on Tuesday. Instead, it will simply acknowledge that, under the party’s statute, the membership of certain individuals expired at midnight between Thursday and Friday, said Karol Karski, a member of the committee. The matter concerns members of former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s association, “Rozwój Plus”.
The leader of Law and Justice (PiS), Jarosław Kaczyński, said on Friday that “more than thirty MPs (…) resigned from their membership” in the party. He added that next Tuesday the party’s Political Committee would “take note of this fact.”
“A Resolution of a Declaratory Nature”
The PiS leader stressed that every party parliamentarian was aware of the consequences of refusing to sign a declaration stating they did not belong to any political associations. In practice, the issue concerned membership in Rozwój Plus, the association founded by former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
Later that day, Karol Karski, a member of the PiS Political Committee and former Member of the European Parliament, was asked about the procedural aspects of the matter. He emphasized that “this is not about expelling anyone from the party, but about determining whether, under the party’s statute, their membership in Law and Justice still exists or whether it has already expired by operation of the statute.”
According to Karski, on Tuesday the Political Committee will determine “whether a situation has occurred that, under the statute, is treated the same as resignation – namely joining another political grouping, another political party, or another organization of a political nature.”
“The Political Committee will essentially adopt a resolution of a declaratory nature. It will not decide anything or determine anything. It will simply state that, under the party’s statute, the membership of certain individuals expired at midnight between Thursday and Friday,” Karski explained.
“Membership in an Organization Whose Objectives Conflict with the Interests of PiS“
According to the PiS statute, party membership may end as a result of, among other things, membership in an organization “whose objectives are contrary to the goals, ideological principles, program, or interests of PiS,” or through active support for such an organization.
Membership may also be terminated if a party member ceases to fulfill the obligation to accept the goals of PiS, its methods of operation, and the principles laid down in the party statute, internal regulations, and decisions of the party authorities. Membership may also end due to violations of a party member’s duties, including acting contrary to the party’s program, political line, or political interests, or failing to implement its program.
The party statute also sets out the procedure for removing a politician from the PiS membership list. According to its provisions, the Regional Board of PiS removes a member by resolution once the loss of membership has been established. Such a resolution may be appealed to the Political Committee within seven days of its delivery.
The statute also emphasizes that “the termination of membership does not constitute grounds for any claims against PiS or its assets.”
At midnight on Thursday, the deadline expired for PiS parliamentarians to submit declarations stating they did not belong to political associations, following an ultimatum from the party leadership that failure to do so could result in expulsion from the party. In his Friday statement, Jarosław Kaczyński stressed that signing the declaration of non-membership in associations was “nothing more than declaring” that one would not participate in an initiative aimed at “dividing the party.”
More than 40 members of Mateusz Morawiecki’s association signed a letter addressed to Kaczyński last Friday. In addition to Morawiecki himself, the signatories included PiS MPs Marcin Horała, Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk, Janusz Cieszyński, Paweł Jabłoński, Anna Kwiecień, Łukasz Kmita, Ryszard Terlecki, Mirosława Stachowiak-Różecka, Agnieszka Ścigaj, Olga Semeniuk-Patkowska, Fryderyk Kapinos, Grzegorz Lorek, Krzysztof Kubów, Łukasz Schreiber, Ryszard Bartosik, Zbigniew Chmielowiec, Paweł Rychlik, Andrzej Gut-Mostowy, Marzena Machałek, Grzegorz Puda, Ireneusz Zyska, Robert Gontarz, Krzysztof Lipiec, Sylwester Tułajew, Wiesław Krajewski, Grzegorz Macko, Sławomir Skwarek, Wojciech Zubowski, Marcin Gwóźdź, Monika Pawłowska, Anna Baluch, Andrzej Kryj, Maria Koc, Włodzimierz Tomaszewski, Anna Cicholska, Krzysztof Szczucki, Elżbieta Duda, Michał Cieślak, as well as independent MP Marek Jakubiak.
The letter was also signed by Members of the European Parliament Michał Dworczyk, Piotr Müller, and Daniel Obajtek, as well as MP Anita Czerwińska, who was not a member of the association. However, Czerwińska and Obajtek later submitted the declaration required by the party leadership confirming that they had resigned from membership in political associations.