The Supreme Court of Poland is due to decide on the validity of the June presidential election on Tuesday, won by the nationalist candidate, faced with numerous complaints on the progress of the ballot and doubts about the legitimacy of the court of the court in charge of the case.
According to the electoral commission, Karol Nawrocki, a historian supported by the Nationalist Party Droit et Justice (PIS), obtained 50.89% of the votes in the second round of June 1, while his rival, the mayor of Warsaw, Rafal Trzaskowski, supported by the pro-element coalition, obtained 369,000 less votes, in this country of 38 million inhabitants.
All the doubts relating to the electoral trial and its validation have already been qualified by the pis of attempts to “steal the elections”.
Under the Constitution, the Supreme Court must give its approval before the elected candidate could take an oath before the two chambers of Parliament during a ceremony scheduled for August 6.
However, the legitimacy of the House of Extraordinary Appeals and Public Affairs, set up by the previous nationalist government, and which must decide on Tuesday, has been questioned by European justice, by a good part of the political class, magistrates and experts.
In 2023, the European Court of Human Rights estimated that this Chamber did not respond to the definition of an “independent and impartial court established by law”.
On Monday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk recalled that each decision of this room is now published in the Official Journal with an annotation indicating that his “judgment is intrinsically tainted with legal irregularity”, since this room is “poorly constituted within the Supreme Court”.
Nevertheless, recognized Mr. Tusk “It is not possible (…) that the Supreme Court is replaced in this case, namely recognition of the validity or disability of the elections, by the prosecutor’s office or the government”.
– “Paralyze the Supreme Court” –
Since the second round of the presidential election, the Supreme Court has received around 56,000 complaints concerning the ballot.
The judges have already undoubtedly classified more than 50,000 of these complaints, based in particular on models of complaints broadcast on social networks, denounced by the president of the court, Malgorzata Manowska, as an “operation aimed (…) to paralyze the Supreme Court”.
The Court had however ordered the recount of the results of 13 polling stations at the beginning of the month. The national prosecutors later said that in some of these votes offices had been transferred from one candidate to another, mainly in favor of Mr. Nawrocki.
Roman Giertych, deputy for the government coalition and author of one of the models of complaints broadcast online, suspects that there has been a reassignment of the votes in favor of Mr. Nawrocki and a rigging of the ballots.
With several experts, he calls to recount the voices nationally and even to postpone the presidential oath ceremony, the time to elucidate irregularities.
These experts believe that the rule of law has been undermined by the reforms introduced by previous nationalist government and outgoing president Andrzej Duda. These reforms exhibited Poland to a long showdown with the European Commission, attenuated since the coming to power of the Pro-European coalition in October 2023.
The President of the Parliament “will have to make a decision, aware of all the constitutional and procedural failures that have occurred,” the Minister of Justice, Adam Bodnar.
The president of the Parliament Szymon Holownia, as well as many other members of the ruling coalition, have so far firmly rejected the idea of ​​postponing the presidential oath.
Regardless, the Minister of Justice, who is also head of the national prosecutor’s office, summoned a group of prosecutors responsible for examining the “irregularities” in the voting census.
“You have to investigate wherever there is a suspicion of crime,” said Donald Tusk.
Posted on July 1 at 05:01 am, AFP
