Electoral commission rejects ruling by disputed Supreme Court chamber restoring opposition funding

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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 crisis surrounding the finances of Poland’s main opposition party, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS), took a further twist today after the National Electoral Commission (PKW) refused to accept a recent ruling to restore PiS’s public funding issued by a chamber of the Supreme Court whose legitimacy is disputed.

The decision means that the fate of tens of millions of zloty that would normally be granted to PiS in the coming years remains in limbo. The head of the PKW also warns that it could cause problems with the organisation of next year’s presidential election.

At a heated meeting of the PKW today, a narrow majority of five of its nine members supported a motion to indefinitely postpone responding to last week’s ruling by the Supreme Court to overturn a decision made in August by the PKW to cut PiS’s public funding due to campaign spending irregularities.

❗️❗️WP: PKW (5/4) odracza decyzję ws. milionów dla PiS do czasu uregulowania przez władze statusu Izby Kontroli oraz sędziów w niej zasiadających. Szef PKW grozi kryzysem i brakiem możliwości zorganizowania wyborów prezydenckich. @wirtualnapolska https://t.co/wpqKYFyMFf

— Patryk Michalski (@patrykmichalski) December 16, 2024

The person who submitted the motion, Paweł Gieras – who is one of the five PKW members that were nominated by the current ruling coalition – explained that the commission cannot make a decision until the legal status of the Supreme Court chamber that issued the ruling is “systematically regulated”.

That is a reference to the fact that the Supreme Court’s chamber of extraordinary review and public affairs – which issued the ruling and was created by PiS when it was in office – is staffed entirely by judges nominated through the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS) after it was also overhauled by PiS.

Those reforms, which brought the KRS under greater political control, have rendered it, and the judges appointed by it, illegitimate, according to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Poland’s current government, which replaced PiS in power one year ago, also does not recognise their legitimacy.

A chamber of the Supreme Court created by the former PiS government is „not a tribunal established by law”, the EU’s top court has found.

The same chamber is due next month to rule on the validity of the recent elections at which PiS lost power https://t.co/gXgHSobD8C

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 22, 2023

Among those to oppose Gieras’s motion was the head of the PKW, Sylwester Marciniak, who was appointed when PiS was in power. He warned that the decision would “lead to the paralysis of state bodies”, including the PKW itself, reports financial news website Money.pl.

Marciniak noted that the chamber of extraordinary review and public affairs plays an integral role in elections. Among other things, it considers appeals by participants and is responsible for confirming the final results – as it did for the 2023 parliamentary elections that brought the current government to power.

That means that, for example, if the registration of any candidates for the presidential election is rejected by the PKW and they appeal the decision, any ruling issued by the Supreme Court would in theory not be recognised by the PKW – potentially resulting in chaos.

 

After Gieras pointed to the ECJ ruling rejecting the legitimacy of the chamber, Marciniak responded that “neither the EU nor the ECJ conduct elections in Poland; it is the obligation of the National Electoral Commission”.

Gieras, however, argued that “it is impossible [for the PKW] to make a decision [in response to the Supreme Court ruling], because there are doubts as to whether the chamber that issued the ruling is a court”, reports broadcaster TVN. He wants to “give lawmakers time to fix the situation”.

But Marciniak noted that, while he has appealed to President Andrzej Duda and the speaker of parliament to resolve legal issues surrounding the disputed status of some judges, that is unlikely to happen in 2025.

The Supreme Court has overturned a decision by the electoral commission to reject the opposition PiS party’s financial report and cut its public funding.

However, the decision was made by a court chamber seen as illegitimate by the electoral commission https://t.co/IcN2J3t5eW

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 12, 2024

In the meantime, it remains unclear what will happen to tens of millions of zloty that PiS was meant to receive as part of the state funding that is given to all major political parties in Poland.

The funds are formally paid out by the finance ministry. But the ministry has previously said that it will simply follow whatever decision is made by the PKW on the issue.

Today’s decision by the PKW was condemned as “completely illegal” by PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, who called it “another step towards depriving Poland of democracy”.

He and his party have argued that the government is using the fact that it has a majority on the electoral commission – a situation that results from changes made by PiS itself when it was in power – to try to destroy the opposition.

The electoral commission has rejected the opposition PiS party’s financial report, which could cost it tens of millions of zloty in lost subsidies.

PiS called it an attempt by the government to „eliminate opposition” and „introduce an autocratic system” https://t.co/h0lyWoBSnO

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 19, 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: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.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.