Page 36 - bne magazine February 2024_20240206

36 I Central Europe bne February 2024
President Andrzej Duda (left) reportedly kept Prime Minister Donald Tusk (right) waiting for a few minutes before seeing him for a crucial meeting on January 15 / Marek Borawski for President Duda's office
Poland set for tumultuous year as Tusk and Duda lock horns
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Poland’s new Prime Minister Donald Tusk locked horns with President Andrzej Duda once again on January 15 in what is set to be the defining pattern of Polish politics this year.
The series of disputes between Poland's top two political leaders centre on Tusk’s attempts to restore the rule of law in Poland, which the previous government of Law and Justice (PiS) – of which Duda is a staunch ally – compromised with a series of legally dubious judicial reforms that led the European Union to suspend European aid.
The problem for Tusk is that restoring the rule of law requires the removal of
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PiS placemen in key positions, who were often appointed in a judicially improper way, but whose removal will also require judicially dubious methods, given the veto power wielded by Duda.
Duda and PiS thus accuse the Tusk government of the same indiscriminate use of judicial changes for political gain that Tusk accuse PiS and its president of in their governments between 2015-2023. PiS itself conducted a huge purge when it took over in 2015 and then built up a new system dominated by its own appointees that is now proving very difficult to dislodge.
The disputes threaten to throw Poland into judicial chaos by casting doubt on
the power of judges and other officials appointed under each government, and their decisions.
The conflict reached a new high on January 15 after Tusk met Duda in the latter’s office, apparently to discuss the prime minister’s forthcoming trip to Kyiv.
But the meeting’s agenda was overshadowed by last week’s decision by Tusk’s Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Adam Bodnar to nominate a new acting head of the national prosecutor’s office. On the same day as the Tusk- Duda meeting, Poland's Constitutional Tribunal said the changes in the national prosecutor’s office were invalid.