Presidential sex reassignment law veto reaches Sejm
The presidential veto of a sex reassignment law has reached the Sejm (lower house), PAP was told on Monday morning by the Sejm Chancellery press office.
The rejected law was planned to facilitate sex change in official documents. It embraced only the legal aspects of sex change and did not take into account medical ones.
President Andrzej Duda vetoed the law on Friday claiming that it was full of gaps and inaccuracies.
If the president vetoes a law, it must be sent back to the Sejm together with documents substantiating the decision taken by the head of state. The Sejm can reject the presidential veto with a three-fifths majority in the presence of at least 50 percent of all MPs. If the Sejm rejects the veto, the president has to sign the bill.
Sejm Speaker Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska expressed hope on Monday that the presidential veto would be rejected but stressed that "every MP takes his/her own decision".
"I am not a lawyer but I do not share the doubts expressed by the president," Kidawa-Blonska told RMF FM radio and added that "if the president had doubts regarding legal aspects" he should have sent the bill to the Constitutional Tribunal.
Asked if the coalition was likely to unite forces with the left to reject the veto, Kidawa-Blonska stressed she believed the lower house would defend the bill.
The Sejm has only one sitting on October 8-9 before the October 25 general election.
Later on Monday Kidawa-Blonska announced that the Sejm would probably take a vote on the veto on Friday. According to Kidawa-Blonska, work on the bill in the Sejm was calm and carried out "in full understanding of the existence of a problem which should be solved".
"I hope that the Sejm will reject the veto. During their work on the bill MPs were convinced that the document was important," the Sejm speaker stressed. (PAP)
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