PiS has fallen into a hole. It was a hard slog for two terms [FELIETON]

Since the end of last year, PiS has had the opportunity to see that its election slogan is becoming a reality. On Thursday, the law and justice caught up with the PiS party itself. The National Electoral Commission rejected the financial report of its electoral commission, concluding that the PiS campaign was also supported by many other institutions, and the party did not react to it, which means “accepting these benefits in violation of Article 132 § 5 of the Electoral Code.” The total value of these benefits was calculated at more than PLN 3.6 million, with the most expensive being the place paid for by the Ministry of Justice (more than PLN 2.6 million), which was supposed to promote amendments to the Criminal Code, and mainly promoted the candidate for MP Zbigniew Ziobro. In any case, the National Electoral Commission looked through its fingers, because it only had doubts about, among others, two military picnics, the network monitoring conducted by NASK and the hiring of RCL employees who in fact managed the election campaign of its boss, Krzysztof Szczucki. However, it received a mountain of reports from ministries, MPs, the Supreme Audit Office and many other institutions, which showed many examples of how public money was used to support just one party.

But even these PLN 3.6 million could result in PiS receiving more than PLN 10 million in reimbursements for the election campaign and cutting the annual subsidy to this amount. If the National Electoral Commission rejects PiS’s annual financial report, the subsidy (more than PLN 25 million per year) will be suspended for three years.

PiS screams that this is a political revenge because the National Electoral Commission is composed of members elected by the Sejm. It is worth remembering that none other than PiS changed these regulations – until 2020, only judges were part of the National Electoral Commission.

PiS can appeal the decision of the National Electoral Commission to the Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs Chamber of the Supreme Court. There is just one problem: according to the case law of the European courts, this chamber is not a court. And it is not a court because it consists only of so-called neo-judges, that is, people appointed by the National Council of the Judiciary, which is politicized by PiS. I wonder what will happen when the Minister of Finance – because he is the one who ultimately gives the consent for transfers to political parties – comes to the conclusion that, as an official of a law-abiding state, he cannot recognize the decisions of a body that is not a court?

You wanted it yourself, Grzegorz Dyndało.