Parliament strips Polish opposition leader Kaczyński of immunity from prosecution
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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
The government’s majority in parliament has voted to strip opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński of immunity so that he can face prosecution for allegedly hitting an activist protesting during a commemoration of the plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczyński, Jarosław’s identical twin brother.
On the 10th day of every month, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, commemorates the Smolensk disaster of 10 April 2010, which killed Lech Kaczyński and 95 others during a flight to Russia.
The events regularly draw protesters, with one group repeatedly placing a wreath at the Smolensk memorial in Warsaw with an inscription accusing Lech Kaczyński himself of being responsible for the crash. That has often led to confrontations with Jarosław Kaczyński, who seeks to remove the wreath.
In September this year, during one such incident, Kaczyński allegedly struck activist Zbigniew Komosa, a moment captured on video.
Nagrania: Kaczyński uderza pięścią aktywistę @KomosaZbigniew pod pomnikiem smol
Po konferencji PiS, grupa z J.Kaczynskim ruszyła na mówiącego przez megafon Komosę
Najpierw -9 sek nagrania-JK próbuje wyrwać aktywiście mikrofon
Potem-18 sek nagrania-widać jak 3 razy uderza pięścią pic.twitter.com/0QVFo6AIkn
— Krzysztof Boczek (@Bacon227) September 10, 2024
“There were three attempts, but only two blows reached me,” Komosa told a parliamentary committee earlier this week during discussion of his request to lift Kaczyński’s immunity so that he can face prosecution.
The activist said he would withdraw the accusation and stop making the controversial wreaths if Kaczynski apologised for his claims that the Smolensk crash was not an accident – as official investigations found – but a deliberate assassination of his brother.
Kaczyński himself, however, says that his actions towards Komosa were self-defence. He also said today that he “reacted to this man’s sense of impunity, that he could act as if no moral or legal rules applied to him”.
In a vote on Friday afternoon, a majority of 241 MPs in the 460-seat Sejm, the lower house of parliament, voted to lift Kaczyński’s immunity as a member of the Sejm so that he can face a private protection brought by Komosa.
Almost all the votes in favour came from MPs in the current ruling coalition, which stretches from left to centre-right, while a further five came from the small left-wing Together (Razem) party that recently split from the coalition.
The 206 votes against the motion came mainly from PiS itself, which was joined by the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), another opposition party, and the small Republicans (Republikanie) group that is aligned with PiS.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk welcomed the result of the vote, saying that it would allow “a politician to be held accountable before the justice system for the wrong done to an ordinary person”, reports news website Onet.
However, in a separate vote, the Sejm rejected a request by the national commander of police to lift Kaczyński’s immunity over a case involving the destruction of a wreath at another Smolensk commemoration.
The main ruling group, Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO), and one of its junior partners, The Left (Lewica), voted to lift Kaczyński’s community in that case.
But they were outvoted after two parties from the ruling coalition – the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL) and the centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) – joined the opposition in opposing the motion.
Requests by the police chief to lift the immunity of two other PiS MPs, Marek Suski and Anita Czerwińska, over the destruction of the wreath were also rejected.
162 miesięcznica smoleńska. Kaczyńskiemu puściły nerwy. Własnoręcznie zniszczył wieniec złożony przy „smoleńskich schodach” przez Zbigniewa Komosę.
Materiał Roberta Kowalskiego. 🎥 👉https://t.co/YbNozVRs8R @TuPacewicz pic.twitter.com/MCuRz6Cnpu
— OKO.press (@oko_press) October 10, 2023
In a post on X, Komosa expressed frustration that the Sejm did not agree to waive immunity in the wreaths case, arguing that MPs had voted “against the verdicts of the courts, including two from the Supreme Court”, that ruled wreaths “had the right” to be placed by the Smolensk monument.
The wreaths placed by Komosa include an inscription saying: “To the memory of the 95 victims of Lech Kaczyński who, ignoring all procedures, ordered the pilots to land at Smolensk in extremely difficult conditions.”
Jarosław Kaczyński, by contrast, claims the disaster was an “attack” orchestrated by “the highest level of the Kremlin.” He also accuses the Tusk-led government of the time of “covering up” the incident. However, PiS and Kaczyński have never presented evidence that would support such accusations.
The defence ministry will notify prosecutors of 41 suspected crimes linked to a commission established by the former PiS government to investigate the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczyński https://t.co/aEAlmk9lDM
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 24, 2024
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
