Parliament approves changes to Russian influence law despite Venice Commission call to scrap it

Poland’s ruling party has pushed through legislation introducing changes to the commission tasked with investigating Russian influence. It overturned an attempt by the opposition to have the bill thrown out.

The decision comes just two days after the Venice Commission, an expert body of the Council of Europe, issued a report finding that the Russian influence commission – even with the proposed changes – threatens the fairness of this year’s elections and should be scrapped completely.

The @VeniceComm has just released its urgent opinion on Law on the commission to investigate Russian influences in Poland – finding numerous violations of human rights and Rule of Law standards.
🔹 https://t.co/urxn1zuXcJ pic.twitter.com/lRjEfN3CDg

— Rule of Law in Poland (@RULEOFLAWpl) July 26, 2023

The idea of creating the commission was proposed by the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party last year, before being passed by parliament and signed into law by President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, in May this year.

However, Duda quickly backtracked after the US and EU raised concern that the commission – which has the power to ban people from holding public office – could be used against the opposition ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections.

Days after signing the law, the president proposed changes to water down the commission’s powers. They were approved by the PiS-controlled Sejm, the lower house of parliament. But the upper-house Senate, where the opposition has a majority, rejected the amendments.

The opposition argues that, despite the changes, the commission will still be used for political purposes by the government ahead of the election. However, today PiS and its allies in the Sejm overturned the Senate’s decision and the bill now goes to Duda for final approval.

How MPs from different parliamentary groups voted today on amendments to the Russian influence commission (Za = For, Preciw = Against)

On Wednesday this week, the Venice Commission – a body made up of experts on constitutional law – issued an “urgent opinion” on the Russian influence commission. It found that, even with the proposed changes, the body was still “fundamentally flawed”.

“The Venice Commission recognises the legitimacy of the efforts aimed at countering undue foreign influence but considers that the approach taken by th[is] law is not appropriate,” it wrote in its report.

It found that the Russian influence commission’s powers are “extraordinary, intrusive, retroactive and non-judicial in nature” and have been “formulated in an excessively vague manner”.

These concerns, along with the fact that members of the commission are appointed by parliament, mean it “resembles a body of a political nature [and] enjoys a virtually unlimited discretion” with no “guarantees against political misuse”, including “influence on the electoral process”.

The EU has opened legal action against Poland over its new Russian influence commission, which can ban individuals from public office.

This is an „absurd attack” and „interference in Poland’s internal affairs”, says a deputy leader of the ruling PiS party https://t.co/zsRYpSI1oK

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 8, 2023

“The establishment of a commission where the ‘accused’ is publicly interrogated by an administrative body on vaguely defined grounds is incredibly dangerous,” pointed out the Venice Commission.

It could lead to the labelling of political opponents as “enemies of the state”, damaging the democratic process, reducing pluralism in the political landscape, and fuelling a sense of general distrust in society, found the report.

“This is even more problematic as the Commission may base its assessment on classified information, even if it is ‘top secret’ (to which it has unlimited access), without having to reveal the source,” it said.

The main groups in the European Parliament – representing 75% of its members – have jointly called for “full-scale observation” of this year’s elections in Poland due to concerns that they “might not be held to the highest democratic standards” https://t.co/qgeQvyvUhl

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 7, 2023

“It may lead to the violation of numerous procedural and substantive human rights and is also at odds with the principles of legal certainty, the separation of powers and checks and balances,” it added.

This leads “to the conclusion that the law should be repealed in its entirety, and its flaws would not be remedied by the amending draft law”.

The government, PiS and President Duda have, however, argued that the commission is a necessary tool to root out Russian influence. They say that the amendments approved today address the concerns raised by critics of the initial law.

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Main image credit: Lukas Plewnia/Flickr (under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.