The high-profile case is the latest to pit Poland’s new pro-EU authorities against the populist PiS party which lost power in last year’s elections. Both sides trade accusations of violations of the rule of law.
“I decided (…) to launch a pardon procedure,” declared Andrzej Duda after a meeting with the wives of the two men, calling them “the first political prisoners since 1989”, the year of the fall of the communist regime Poland.
Two years in prison initially
He also announced that he would ask the attorney general to immediately release the two men – Interior Minister of the previous populist government Mariusz Kaminski and his close associate Maciej Wasik – who began a hunger strike on Wednesday.
“The last resort we have is Mr. President. We hope our husbands come home today,” Mr. Wasik’s wife, Romualda, told reporters. In December, a Polish court sentenced Kaminski and Wasik to two years in prison on appeal for exceeding their duties in a case dating back to 2007.
Mr. Kaminski was head of the central anti-corruption office at the time and was convicted of orchestrating a false corruption case against a political official. Elected deputies during the October elections, the two men saw their parliamentary mandates canceled, which they refuse to recognize.
A pardon already given in 2015
The president had already pardoned the two men in 2015, but the pardon was subsequently questioned by the Supreme Court for having been granted even before the court’s decision came into force. Since the conviction on appeal of the two men in December, the president has emphasized that his pardon was legitimate and still in force.
The 2015 pardon “is effective and, according to my personal conviction, gentlemen (Kaminski and Wasik) are still deputies”. The two men were arrested Tuesday evening at the presidential palace by the police where they had spent the day at the invitation of the head of state.
Their arrest provoked strong protests from the current opposition, which organized a large rally in front of Parliament on Thursday to protest against the new government, accusing it of “destroying democracy in Poland”.