The Pride and Modernity Association registered a public collection for a person lawfully convicted of murder. It’s the same organisation whose leader organised a worship session for Adolf Hitler which was filmed by TVN’s Superwizjer journalists. The Ministry of Interior and Administration, which registered the public collection, claims it cannot stop it.
Pride and Modernity is an organisation whose name was on the lips of all politicians and commentators on Monday.
On Saturday, 20 January, TVN's Superwizjer disclosed outrageous details about the activity of its leaders, e.g. participation in a closed music festival with racist messages propagated from the stage and participants boasting their swastika tattoos and performing Nazi salutes.
The concerts took place in March in a Lower Silesian village. In May, the Pride and Modernity leader invited the insiders to a celebration of Adolf Hitler’s 128th birthday, where the criminal was honoured in various forms.
For Pride and Modernity, Waluś is a hero
In the meantime, it transpired that Pride and Modernity was holding a public money collection for Janusz Waluś, a Pole who emigrated to the Republic of South Africa. RSA was the last country in the world where racial segregation and separation of the black and white population was an institutionalised social system. Waluś joined the governing National Party and Afrikaner Resistance Movement – a neo-Nazi paramilitary group preaching white supremacy. He is currently serving a life sentence for assassinating Chris Hani, the black leader of the South African Communist Party.
Nevertheless, Pride and Modernity present Waluś as a hero who protected RSA against communism and genocide – even though after the fall of apartheid, he was judged by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission responsible for evaluating the crimes of apartheid. The Commission ruled Waluś’s action as unjustified, which is why the murderer remains behind bars.
Pride and Modernity, which is registered as a public benefit organisation, started a public collection in aid of Waluś. “All money collected in the fundraiser will be transferred to Janusz Waluś for the purchase of medications and food in the prison canteen.” The collection was registered without any obstacles on the website of public collections of the Ministry of Interior and Administration. This took place last week – on 18 January. Five volunteers intend to collect money for a year.
Is the minister nothing but a notary public here?
The fact that the Ministry registered the collection is crucial here. Fundraising goals cannot be chosen with full latitude – they have to be public goals within the meaning of their statutory definition. If the fundraising goal or reason to collect non-cash donations is not public, then instead of a public collection, one can only hold a private whip-round. Any public encouragement to participate in such a private whip-round is forbidden.
Still, the Waluś fundraiser registered by Pride and Modernity benefits from all the privileges of a public collection ever since it was registered by the Ministry of Interior and Administration.
The Ministry’s press office issued a notice, in which it maintains that the minister could not have acted differently, but had to register the collection.
“The provisions (of the Public Collection Law amended in 2014) softened the requirements for organisers. In this case, the Minister of Interior and Administration no longer issues administrative decisions granting his consent to a collection, but merely registers applications transmitted through a form on the zbiorki.gov.pl website,” the Ministry informed.
The Ministry’s press office stresses that the situation was different when the old regulations were in place. The Minister could control public collections prior to their registration.
“Before the 2014 amendment, the Minister of Interior and Administration issued an administrative decision, could verify applications and demand documentation from organisers,” the notice reads. What is more, the ministry claims that it cannot even put a stop to the collection registered by “Pride and Modernity” Association.
“Without implementing the required legislative amendments, (…) the Ministry of Interior and Administration cannot intervene and remove the collection. There are currently no legal premises to take such actions,” stressed the ministry’s press office in response to our questions.
Officials of the Ministry are “working on a proposal to amend the Public Collection Law.”
Expert: the Minister had the grounds to reject it
While it is true that the minister no longer consents to a public collection by issuing an administrative decision, he may issue one to block such a collection. This is something the Ministry’s response fails to mention.
The minister has the obligation to refuse to publish information about a collection in a number of circumstances. Two of them are relevant for the Waluś fundraiser: 1) the fundraising goal indicated in the application is illegal; 2) or goes beyond the sphere of public actions.
It is difficult to ascertain whether holding a public collection for a person legally convicted of a crime is against the law. One could imagine that helping persons guilty of crimes obtain treatment or rehabilitation is justified for humanitarian reasons.
“However, a public collection such as the one for Waluś registered by the ministry clearly goes beyond the sphere of public tasks as defined in the Public Benefit and Volunteer Work Act,” says Professor of Law and practising barrister Maciej Gutowski.
Public tasks for which one can publicly collect money are listed in 39 items of the act. According to Prof. Gutowski, none of them correspond to the Waluś fundraiser held by Pride and Modernity.
Pride and Modernity matched their fundraising goal with the regulations in a rather peculiar manner. They listed it under “social assistance, including aid for families and persons in difficult circumstances and achieving equality of opportunity for such families and persons.”
“In my opinion, by organising a collection thus defined, this association abuses the status of a public benefit organisation,” says Prof. Gutowski.
“Especially since it calls for transferring 1% of income tax for the Waluś fundraiser. This is a particular instrument. It involves the state giving up 1% of its due income tax. It shares this money with social activists, expecting them in turn to take on some of the state’s public tasks. I cannot imagine how aiding a convicted criminal can constitute a task of the state taken over by this association,” he underlines.
Deputy Minister of Justice: “it should be stopped”
Interestingly, the attitude of the Ministry of Interior and Administration also surprised Deputy Minister of Justice Patryk Jaki.
“I think that if there is a possibility to stop it, then it should be stopped,” Jaki said about the fundraiser in TVN24’s Fakty po faktach. “I’ll ask my fellow deputy ministers to take an interest in the matter and stop this fundraiser.”
In its message, the Ministry of Interior and Administration stresses that the public collection regulations were softened by the former government of Civic Platform (PO) and the Polish People's Party (PSL).
“Work is currently underway at the Ministry to amend the Public Collection Act and reinstate the tools accessible to the Minister of Interior and Administration,” reads the ministry’s press release.
Źródło: tvn24.pl/tłumaczenie Intertext.com.pl
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: tvn24