Poland’s State Prosecutor’s Office has submitted a request to the Sejm to suspend the immunity of Polish opposition MP and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki due to criminal proceedings initiated against him related to the government’s postal voting plan.
In response, Morawiecki told TV Republika that he is ready to waive his immunity. “I was in pretrial detention during communism, and there would be no problem if I had to sit in prison for a while now during the new communist regime,” he said.
Morawiecki, the current vice-chairman of the main Polish opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS) as well as the new chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR Party) European grouping, said he will not “hide behind immunity” because he is convinced that “the truth will defend itself.”
According to Mandiner, the prosecutor’s request was submitted based on the final report in October of the parliamentary investigation committee investigating the government’s plan for postal voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The committee filed a prosecutor’s report against a total of 19 individuals, including Jarosław Kaczynski, the leader of PiS, and Elzbieta Witek, the former speaker of the lower house of parliament in Poland.
The Polish Constitutional Court found the establishment of the parliamentary investigation committee to be a violation of the constitution last year, but the new government under Tusk does not recognize the decisions of this body.
The Morawiecki government originally planned the 2020 presidential election to be exclusively by postal vote due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, the first round of the election was ultimately postponed due to the lack of political consensus and the protracted discussion in the opposition-majority Senate. Voters ended up voting in a mixed, traditional and postal vote at the end of June instead of the original date of early May.
The prosecutor’s office on Thursday accused Morawiecki of exceeding his authority by preparing for the exclusive postal vote. Prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Anna Adamiak said that the act could result in a prison sentence of up to three years.
“At that time, by organizing the elections, I was merely ‘implementing the provisions of the constitution,’” Morawiecki has said.
