Warsaw regional court issues order to take sentenced PiS members to prison

In 2015, weeks after the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power, President Andrzej Duda issued a pardon to former Interior Minister Mariusz Kamiński who had been found guilty of abuse of power while serving as head of an anti-corruption agency.

Lawyers questioned whether Duda was entitled to pardon him before an appeals court issued a final ruling. The Supreme Court said last year that the case should be reopened.

Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik were sentenced in December to two years in prison. Both denied any wrongdoing.

Duda on Monday reiterated that he believed his pardon should stand, but shortly afterwards a Warsaw court said that documentation needed to take Kamiński and Wąsik to prison was ready.

"Executive documentation was prepared, including orders to bring convicts M.K. and M.W. to penitentiary units," local media cited the court as saying.

PiS lawmaker Rafał Bochenek said Monday's decision by the court was "scandalous and outrageous" in a post on social media platform X, adding that it was "proof of the lack of respect for the law and constitutional principles, including the presidential power of pardon" by the new government.

The head of Duda's office said he had invited Kamiński and Wąsik to the presidential palace at 1000 GMT on Tuesday (Jan. 9) for a ceremony marking the appointment of new advisors.

Some lawyers have said the dispute was an illustration of judicial disarray following the former nationalist government's reforms.

According to many lawyers and the speaker of the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, the verdict in December meant Kamiński and Wąsik lost their parliamentary mandates, but both deny that and have said they plan to attend the next sitting.

The case also kindled a conflict within the Supreme Court where judges are fighting over which chamber should have the final word on the issue.

Sejm Speaker Szymon Hołownia has said there is "procedural chaos" in the judicial system.

Holownia wanted the appeal of his decision invalidating the mandates to be heard by the Labour Law Chamber while Kamiński and Wąsik said it should be the Chamber of Extraordinary Control, which ruled on the issue last week.

The latter is a chamber created under the former government and manned by judges appointed under rules that critics and European bodies have said fail to meet rule-of-law standards.

"This is a six-dimensional multiverse of a chaos situation, but the panel of 'old' judges from the 'old' chamber appears unfazed by this and will hear the case next week," Jakub Jaraczewski, Research Coordinator at Democracy Reporting International, wrote on the social media platform X.