Duda challenges government over appointment of national prosecutor
Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, has called on Prime Minister Donald Tusk to stop trying to make "illegal" changes to the country’s justice system and to the post of the national prosecutor in particular.
Duda's letter to Tusk, dated March 19, was published on the president's official website on Thursday.
The president wrote that the position of national prosecutor was still occupied by Dariusz Barski, since he was not dismissed in accordance with law, and since Tusk did not file a request for the president's permission to do so.
His statement is a direct challenge to the authority of the government. Last week, the government appointed Dariusz Korneluk as the new national prosecutor arguing that Barski's appointment was invalid because he had been retired when he was given the job.
Duda argued that Korneluk's appointment was not valid because it lacked his official approval.
According to him, the prime minister's actions and those of the prosecutor general (Justice Minister Adam Bodnar) "stand in glaring opposition to Polish law."
The consequence of that, in Duda's view, will be a "paralysis of the justice system" because it will undermine the decisions issued by Barski and "above all else, by the illegally appointed prosecutors."
"In view of the foregoing arguments, an explicit demand for the prime minister and the justice minister to abandon their attempts at making illegal changes to the prosecution service, especially in regards to the post of national prosecutor, must be formulated," said Duda.
The dispute will cast a shadow over the Polish judicial system as it leaves the president and the government both pushing their respective candidates.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded to the president's criticism later on Thursday, asking him not to disturb the work of prosecution as he referred to high-profile accusations brought by the Supreme Audit Office against the former prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki and the former deputy prime minister and state assets minister, Jacek Sasin.
"According to the Supreme Audit Office, Prime Ministers Morawiecki and Sasin were doing business buying faulty respirators and masks. During a pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives. There are no words," Tusk wrote on the X platform.
"Now it's time for the prosecutor's office. Mr. President, please let it do its work."
The Supreme Audit Office, on Thursday, announced that it would submit a request to the prosecutor's office against people who directly participated in the process of purchasing equipment in connection with counteracting the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes the former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Jacek Sasin, former Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Ministry of State Assets (MAP).(PAP)
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