Date of article: 10/10/2017
Daily News of: 10/10/2017
Country:
Poland
Author:
Article language: en
Gazeta Wyborcza| 5.10.2017 | Section: Cover page | Page no.: 1 | Written by: PAWEŁ KOŚMIŃSKI, MICHAŁ WILGOCKI | Subject: Commissioner for Human Rights - Press | AVE: 33 726 PLN
Jaki attacks attacks Bodnar
Adam Bodnar should resign, announced Deputy Minister of Justice Patryk Jaki. In the Sejm, attempts are made to gather a voting majority required to dismiss the CHR.
Minister Jaki attacked the Commissioner for Human Rights during the Tuesday meeting of the Gazeta Polska Club. He is a man who wants to protect the property restitution lobby, and thus he should resign. What he does is disgraceful, he said.
The statement referred to a letter in which Bodnar expressed his doubts regarding the work of the verification commission headed by Jaki who is a close colleague of Zbigniew Ziobro. The CHR received complaints concerning, inter alia, the method of questioning the witnesses, the biased attitude of the commission and the lack of access to the files. Jaki considers the complaints to be defending the interests of “dealers of restitution claims”.
- Every citizen’s rights are equal. No commission or minister may arbitrarily deprive a citizen of his rights, replied Bodnar during the yesterday’s conference. He also pointed out that Jaki’s commission has to follow the procedures. Otherwise, its findings may be questioned.
With regard to another accusation that he does not protect the rights of tenants, Bodnar replied that in his office there are five employees whose only task is to deal with the complaints of tenants. They receive up to 70 complaints per month.
As regards property restitution, the CHR already a year ago wrote to Prime Minister Beata Szydło suggesting, e.g., the adoption of an act on restitution, a special way of treating tenants of buildings subject to restitution, and prosecutor’s interventions when the rights of persons in an underprivileged social position are violated. He wrote about “disputes which lead to real human suffering”. This was at the beginning of October, a few days before the announcement of the establishment of the commission on property restitution.
The issue was also mentioned by him in the Sejm as part of the report on the CHR activities.
PiS has been considering Bodnar a trouble for a long time already. He criticized upcoming acts of the Parliament: on the Constitutional Tribunal, on surveillance, on counteracting terrorism, and recently on the National Freedom Institute which is planned to distribute funds to non-governmental organizations. The Minister of Justice did not like the fact that Bodnar engaged in the case of a printer from Łódź who refused to provide printing services to an LGBT organization. Representatives of the ruling authorities accuse Bodnar of being biased, “leftist”, and recently of taking the side of judges (in fact, of independence of courts) during the drafting of the act on courts.
Bodnar was elected in 2015. His candidacy was proposed by PO and SLD political parties, and supported by several dozen non-governmental organizations.
- The subject of his dismissal is frequently mentioned by PiS deputies, says Paulina Hennig-Kloska (from Nowoczesna party). Already a year ago, Stanisław Pięta suggested Bodnar should be dismissed. Yet, Jarosław Kaczynski assured that PiS today will not take activities to shorten anyone’s term of office.
Since September, Robert Winnicki (a non-attached member, before a member of Kukiz’15) has been collecting signatures under a petition to dismiss Bodnar. He accuses Bodnar of violating the oath taken (the Act on the CHR provides for the possibility to dismiss the Commissioner on these grounds). The provision is imprecise and gives the Sejm a large space for interpretation. What is even worse, a resolution on CHR’s dismissal is not subject to review by the Constitutional Tribunal or common courts, notes Marcin Szwed, a lawyer from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.
PiS deputies declare they may not sign the petition before it has been supported by the Kukiz club because they cannot afford to lose the vote, says Winnicki.
There is a possibility that PiS will use the hands of the “controlled opposition” to file the petition to dismiss Bodnar, says Hennig-Kloska.
The CHR may be dismissed by a majority of three fifths of the votes cast, provided that at least fifty percent of all deputies are present when the vote is taken.
He has undoubtedly antagonised the government although he tries to act tactfully, in an apolitical way. An attack on the CHR in a civilized democratic country should be considered as providing grounds for dismissal, meaning dismissal of the attacker, states Jan Grabiec (from PO party).
Marcin Szwed says: The verification commission is an executive body so the CHR has the right to control its work and the body has to cooperate with him.