President Duda ratifies "Lex Tusk"

On Friday (July 28), the lower house of parliament dismissed the upper house's rejection of the presidential amendment to the bill on investigating Russian influence in Poland.

According to the amended version, parliament members will not be allowed to sit in the commission to investigate Russian influence, preventive measures included in the original draft have been removed (for instance, the ban on performing duties involving spending public money up to 10 years), and the commission will have the authority to find a person was acting under Russian influence and thus does not guarantee the proper service in public interest.

Committee's decisions can appealed against at the Court of Appeals in Warsaw.

The law establishing a state commission for the investigation of Russian interference in the internal security of Poland from between 2007 and 2022 entered into force on May 31, after having been ratified by President Andrzej Duda a few days prior.

Upon signing the bill into law, the president noted he would send it to the Constitutional Tribunal for further consideration. Already on June 2, president Duda submitted the amendment to the law.

The new law has been dubbed "Lex Tusk" by the opposition, as they argue the main intention of its authors was to create a law that would target the Civic Platform chairman Donald Tusk. Furthermore, the critics of the legislation stress that its provisions could allow to eliminate figures picked by the commission from the political life.