– Senate amendments may only apply to the matter of the act provided for consideration. They cannot replace the law with a new regulation, which requires a legislative initiative […]. The changes running beyond the matter of the amendment are unacceptable – said in the justification of the Wednesday judgment the judge rapporteur Justyn Piskorski.
The amendment, before signing it, directed to the Constitutional Tribunal in March this year. The then President Andrzej Duda, according to which the Senate “went beyond the limits of permissible amendments, which, according to the constitution and case law of the Constitutional Tribunal, may introduce to the text of the Act.”
In amendments introduced to the Act in February this year. The Senate added, among others, what exactly rights and obligations are not performed by a parliamentarian without liberty. The corrections also include that this provision also applies to a deputy and senator, against whom it is not possible to serve a penalty or detention on remand in a situation where he is hiding or absent from the country.
Unanimous sentence
After Wednesday's hearing, the Constitutional Tribunal ruled that The challenged provisions of the amendment are inconsistent with the Constitution. In addition, he decided that the challenged regulations were inseparably related to the entire act, which means that The whole amendment cannot come into force. The verdict was made unanimously in the full composition of the Tribunal, chaired by the president of the Constitutional Tribunal Bogdan Święczkowski.
Piskorski announced that the Tribunal “fully divided” the observations contained in the presidential application and in their context analyzed the legislative proceedings and senate corrections in relation to “Lex Romanowski”. As he said, the analysis of the content of the Act in the wording adopted by the Sejm, as well as the analysis of Senate works “It does not allow to assume that the Sejm also had the intention to make such a far -reaching change“, such as, among others, the introduction of a catalog of rights and obligations of a parliamentarian, which he does not have and which he does not perform at deprivation of liberty.
Constitutionally unacceptable
According to the Tribunal – Piskorski pointed out – the Senate proposed this amendment “with the intention of changing the normative content”. However, such a change was not – according to the Constitutional Tribunal – permissible constitutionally and constituted a normative novelty.
– In the situation of amending the already applicable law, it is necessary for the Senate to limit itself to making amendments only to the amending, not amended law. A change proposal It can only apply to normative novelty within the text, which was transferred after the third reading in the Sejm – said Piskorski.
At the same time, the Constitutional Tribunal estimated that – in ordering such a “momentous matter” that is contained in the Act on the performance of the mandate of a deputy and senator – the legislator should make any changes “with special attention” and therefore “AD hoc solution does not deserve approval, towards which one can raise doubts about whether their main goal is only to deteriorate the situations of current political opponents.”
“Lex Romanowski”, or recipes for one MP
The amendment to the Act on the performance of the mandate of a deputy and senator was commonly called “Lex Romanowski” from the name of the PiS MP, former deputy minister of justice Marcin Romanowski, who is suspected in the investigation of the Justice Fund.
The National Prosecutor's Office accuses him of, among others Participation in an organized criminal group and setting up competitions for money from this fund. These crimes were to include on indicating subordinate employees entities that should be won by competitions for subsidies from the Justice Fund. MP from December last year He stays in Hungary, where he obtained political asylum. Romanowski declared that he treats “his mission on the Danube” as a fight against lawlessness and as actions aimed at “as soon as possible to move the regime harmful to Poles as soon as possible.” The Hungarian court approved the decision of the authorities.
Piskorski also referred to one of the provisions of the Act, already present in the version adopted by the Sejm, according to which the provisions of the amendment apply to a deputy or senator, towards whom a decision was issued on the application of detention on remand before the date of entry into force of the Act. – This regulation was aimed at a specific one opposition MP […]. It is possible that the amending act was also calculated for the potential future harassment of other parliamentary opponents as part of the current term of office of the Chamber – said Piskorski.
The amendment to the Act on the performance of the mandate of a deputy and senator-was founded on the initiative of the group of deputies: KO, Polski 2050-TD and PSL-TD-was adopted at the end of January this year. In the version adopted by the Sejm, it only concerned the situation of detention on remand and stated that The parliamentary, which has been applied to a temporary custody, will not be able to fulfill the rights and obligations arising from this Act until the temporary detention was repealed. In addition, the ban on exercising rights and obligations was also to comply with parliamentarians, against whom a decision was arrested before the date of entry into force of the amendment.
In February, the Sejm accepted the amendments proposed by the Senate. Senate amendments specified exactly what rights and obligations the MP or senator does not perform when he deprived him of freedom. It was for active participation in the work of the Sejm or Senate as well as the National Assembly, and for a whole range of parliamentary rights, such as the right to inspect government administration and local government bodies, as well as companies with the participation of the Treasury as well as state -owned and state -owned enterprises. It was also pointed out that at the time of deprivation of liberty, the parliamentary is not entitled to deputy or senatorial salaries. The regulation was also to apply when the start of imprisonment or the application of detention would not be possible due to its hiding or absence in the country.
In the application addressed to the Constitutional Tribunal, President Andrzej Duda pointed out that the regulation proposed by the Senate in the amendments was never the purpose or intention of deputies […] who brought a bill as part of the legislative initiative. “
The president referred to the judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal, according to which the amendments to the laws brought by the Senate “may only apply to the matter that was the subject of the Act.” In addition, he pointed out that the Senate “is not entitled to replace the content of the Act with a completely different content, because this can only be the subject of a new legislative initiative” – which the higher chamber can also propose.
He commented on the President's request to the Constitutional Tribunal in March this year. Speaker of the Sejm, Polish leader 2050, Szymon Hołownia. “I have no doubt that Poles cannot finance MP Romanowski's holiday in Budapest. The president has doubts, because he just sent the law to the Tribunal. Shame” – wrote the marshal on platform X.
In the resolution adopted in March 2024, the Sejm stated that “in the activities of the public authority of the CT public authority in violation of the law may be considered a violation of the principle of legalism by these authorities.” The Sejm also recognized, among others, that the currently adjudicating Jarosław Wymbak and Justyn Piskorski are not judges of the Constitutional Tribunal. Since the time Resolutions by the Sejm of the Constitutional Tribunal judgments are not published in the Journal of Laws, which results from the interpretation of the word “immediately” by the government.
