Supreme Court cancels discontinuation of Kamiński case

Poland's Supreme Court (SC) has annulled the suspension of the case of Mariusz Kaminski, the interior minister and a former head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), despite him being pardoned by the president of a conviction.

Poland's Supreme Court (SC) has annulled the suspension of the case of Mariusz Kaminski, the interior minister and a former head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), despite him being pardoned by the president of a conviction.

The case has now been referred to a district court for re-examination, and could mean that Kaminski will face a re-trial.

In March 2015, the Warsaw-Srodmiescie District Court sentenced in the first instance Kaminski and Maciej Wasik, the then deputy head of the CBA and now a deputy interior minister, to three years in prison for exceeding their powers and carrying out illegal activities.

But on November 16, 2015, President Duda pardoned the two, plus two others who were also convicted in the case, before the District Court had examined their appeals.

The Supreme Court has now annulled the discontinuation of the case and referred it for re-examination.

Judge Piotr Mirek, in an oral justification of Tuesday's judgment, said: "The administration of justice in the Polish legal order is the exclusive domain of the common courts and the Supreme Court."

He added that in the exercise of the administration of justice, the courts have the right to interpret the law, statutes and the constitution.

The annulment of the suspension appears to conflict with a Constitutional Tribunal ruling issued last Friday that said Duda was within his rights to pardon Kaminski and that the Supreme Court has no control over the president's right to grant clemency.

Reacting to the news, Sebastian Kaleta, a deputy justice minister, wrote on Twitter: "Once again in recent years, the Supreme Court, in a composition that de facto does not recognise the results of the elections in Poland after 2015, has issued a ruling in which it ignores the division of powers, and powers and prerogatives dictated by the constitution, as well as the binding judgments of the Constitutional Tribunal."

He added that judges on the Supreme Court "are participating in a 'rebellion' against their own state" and that their judgements were based on their political views, not the law.

On Tuesday evening, Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, took to Twitter to issue a comment on the ruling: "The decision of the Supreme Court is a bizarre attempt to install a 'jugeocracy' in Poland."

He added that the Supreme Court judges were "using all types of clichés when it comes to defending the Constitution, when in fact they are turning the judiciary into their own personal playground.

"Whoever does not understand this does not understand democracy," Morawiecki wrote.