Tusk government faces first crisis after abortion and court setbacks [Opinion]

By Daniel Tilles

OPINION

Two embarrassing blows in the space of less than a week have left Donald Tusk’s government facing its first serious crisis, raising questions over the unity and competence of the ruling coalition.

When Donald Tusk’s coalition came to power late last year, two of its key promises were to soften Poland’s strict abortion laws and to restore the rule of law, including by holding to account figures from the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) administration for their alleged crimes.

But fulfilling these aims has proven much harder in practice, as two setbacks over the past week have demonstrated.

On Friday, a bill aiming to decriminalise those who help women obtain unlawful abortions during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy was narrowly defeated in parliament after the most conservative element of Tusk’s coalition, the Polish People’s Party (PSL), joined the opposition in voting against it.

More embarrassingly for Tusk, three members of his own Civic Coalition (KO) failed to vote for the bill, in violation of the party line. One was later excused given that he was in hospital but the other two were suspended from the KO caucus.

Parliament has rejected a bill that would have softened Poland’s abortion laws after the most conservative party in Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition joined the right-wing opposition in voting against it https://t.co/pJplnHhtZn

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

The vote exposed an inherent – and potentially existential – problem for Tusk’s coalition, whose ideological range from hard left to centre-right means that it contains a wide and often incompatible diversity of positions on what Poles call “worldview” issues.

Abortion is one such issue; LGBT+ rights is another, with the government also facing a potential defeat later this year if enough PSL MPs rebel against a proposal to introduce same-sex civil partnerships.

There are also three further bills on abortion under consideration by parliament. Each of them has been proposed by one of the main groups in the coalition and each aims to end the near-total abortion ban introduced under PiS.

However, PSL may refuse to support the introduction of abortion on demand, as proposed by KO and The Left (Lewica), while The Left may not support the “compromise” proposed by PSL and Poland 2050 that would return to the pre-PiS abortion law, which was already one of the strictest in Europe.

The nature of Tusk’s coalition means that, if any one group within it rebels, then the government does not have a parliamentary majority.

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While the coalition partners may be divided on worldview issues, one thing they do agree on is restoring the rule of law and holding to account PiS for violating it. However, here, too, little progress has been made.

While supporters of the government blame this on having to face the veto power of PiS-aligned president Andrzej Duda, the fact is that the coalition has not been passing any major judicial reforms that Duda could veto.

For example, a bill fulfilling a promise to separate the positions of justice minister and prosecutor general (both held now by Adam Bodnar) has not yet been presented to parliament, while a bill to overhaul the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS) was only finally passed by parliament last week after months of delay.

The government has only fulfilled 12 of the 100 policies @donaldtusk promised to introduce in his first 100 days in office, a period that finishes this week.

One of his MPs blames the fact they have to rule with coalition partners and a hostile president https://t.co/KpQxWOULxJ

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 18, 2024

The new authorities have, however, pushed ahead more quickly with seeking to launch criminal proceedings against members of the former PiS government for their alleged wrongdoing. Perhaps too quickly, as an embarrassing setback this week suggested.

After parliament on Friday accepted a request by Bodnar to strip former PiS deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski of immunity to face charges relating to the misspending of state funds, he was dramatically taken into detention on Monday at his home by balaclava-clad security agents in front of TV cameras.

But, pointed out his lawyer, Romanowski still enjoys immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). Bodnar’s prosecutors rejected this argument, saying their analysis and two independent legal opinions confirmed that PACE immunity did not apply here.

That position, however, was rejected by the president of PACE, who called for proceedings against Romanowski to be halted, and by a court in Warsaw, which on Tuesday night ordered that Romanowski be released.

A court has ordered the release of an opposition MP who was detained over alleged crimes committed while serving in the former government.

It did so after the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly confirmed he has immunity as a member of the assembly https://t.co/rzQtbtfTBb

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 17, 2024

That prompted widespread criticism of prosecutors, not just from the opposition but from many independent commentators and also Roman Giertych, a prominent KO MP who has led efforts to bring former PiS officials to account (and is also one of the two MPs suspended for rebelling in Friday’s abortion vote).

The consensus is that, at best, prosecutors acted too hastily, while at worst they were simply incompetent. What makes this particularly embarrassing is that the national prosecutor who oversaw the case, Dariusz Korneluk, was appointed after the new government controversially removed the PiS appointee who previously held the position.

That was one of a number of legally questionable moves made by the new government. Another prominent example was their takeover of public media in December, with the aim of removing PiS influence. In that case many commentators also accused them of acting too hastily for political reasons, and courts also rejected elements of the government’s actions.

Two NGOs, @hfhrpl and @SiecObywatelska, have criticised the government for refusing requests to release legal opinions it claims support its takeover of public media.

The culture ministry says it did not save copies of the opinions so cannot provide them https://t.co/ZIle1Dl4bh

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 3, 2024

Many voters appear willing to accept such legal machinations if they have positive effects. But if the outcome is accused criminals being released from custody or, in the case of public media, the previous PiS propaganda being replaced by a bias in favour of the new government, then they may be less forgiving.

Tusk staked a lot of political capital on his pledges to soften the abortion laws and hold PiS to account. Now the first attempt to pass an abortion bill and the first attempt to detain and charge a former PiS minister have both failed.

That raises concerns that the ruling coalition does not have the unity or the competence to implement the ambitious agenda that brought it to power last year.

Donald Tusk has been awarded this year’s @ChathamHouse Prize “in recognition of his commitment to restoring democracy in Poland, rebuilding institutions, and upholding the principles of the rule of law” https://t.co/1n5kKXyEXi

— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 17, 2024

Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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.