If Jarosław Kaczyński claims the Sejm is non-existent, then maybe we should stop paying out salaries to MPs. I wonder how his party colleagues will react to such a statement - Sejm Speaker Szymon Hołownia said on Friday (Jan. 26). Kaczyński said earlier that day if the parliament questions the validity of a contested chamber of the Supreme Court, then it means "the election was not confirmed, therefore there is no Sejm, and Mr Hołownia is not the speaker of the Sejm".
PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński was asked on Friday in the Sejm (the lower chamber of Polish parliament) how to solve the issue of expired MP mandates of two former ministers - Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik - sentenced to prison for abuse of power in previous roles.
The two politicians had been released from prison earlier this week after having been pardoned by President Andrzej Duda.
"In my opinion, in the Sejm does not recognize the Extraordinary Review Chamber (of the Supreme Court), then it simply does not exist (the Sejm). If the Sejm claims the Extraordinary Review Chamber is not a court, then the election (parliamentary election from Oct. 15, 2023) was not confirmed, therefore there is no Sejm, and Mr Hołownia is not the speaker of the Sejm," Kaczyński said.
Hołownia: maybe we should stop paying out salaries
Later on Friday, Szymon Hołownia was asked by reporters about PiS chairman's comment.
"If someone says that the Sejm is de facto non-existent, then this is an important message for the Sejm Chancellery, because maybe we should stop paying out salaries (to MPs). We are looking into this matter. It would be an unbearable contradiction and we wouldn't like to put Law and Justice MPs in it, as they would have to settle a certain ontological dilemma. How can they be receiving something out of nothing? Because if there is no Sejm, then it cannot be paying out parliamentary salaries," Hołownia replied sarcastically.
"But seriously speaking, in my view, Mr Kaczyński - though maybe he'll think I'm a spoiled brat - should slow down a bit with metaphors as he'll quickly run out of them," the parliament speaker said.
In his view, if Kaczyński claims "that something that exists does not exist, they okay, we shall draw serious consequences from it". "I wonder how how his party colleagues will react to such a statement," Hołownia added.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, TVN24
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: TVN24