European watchdog to investigate Poland's 'act of surveillance'

The Venice Commission is again travelling to Warsaw.

The Council of Europe body, comprising experts on constitutional law, will visit Poland on Thursday and Friday (28 and 29 April) to gather information on the new police law, which was adopted on 15 January.

The delegation will meet with parliamentarians as well as representatives of the prosecutor's office, the ministries of justice and home affairs, the Ombudsman and NGOs.

The Council of Europe spokesman Panos Kakaviatos said that the visit was of a technical nature and would serve as the basis of an opinion that will be discussed on 10 or 11 June, at the Council’s next plenary session.

Kakaviatos told Polish press agency PAP that the delegation will feature the secretary of the Venice Commission Thomas Markert, a German.

The updated police law is known in Poland as the “act of surveillance”.

Critics say it gives the police too much access to read and record people’s phone and Internet data, and even standard mail.

The police also get extended rights to record videos and audios in buildings and on public transport. They don’t have to inform those investigated or ask courts for authorisation.

Ombudsman Adam Bodnar, Poland’s official human rights defender, asked Poland’s constitutional court and the Venice Commission for an opinion.

Judicial dispute

Meanwhile, Poland’s supreme court said on Tuesday that the fact of not publishing a constitutional court judgment makes no difference to the validity of its judgement.

In other words, the supreme court will respect constitutional court judgements, whether they are published or not.

Supreme court spokesman Dariusz Swiecki said it was a cue for lower Polish courts to follow.

The judicial dispute comes after the new Polish government has tried to install loyalist judges in the constitutional tribunal and to change the rules that govern its verdicts.

The tribunal refused to recognise the reforms and the government said it won’t publish its decisions in Poland’s legal gazette.

The dispute has created a legal deadlock, with a previous Venice Commission visit to Warsaw prompting a damning report on the goverments’ actions. The European Commission has launched a probe on the rule of law in Poland.

The ruling Law and Justice party’s spokesperson, Beata Mazurek, insisted that rulings aren’t valid unless they are published by the government.

She angered critics by saying that the supreme court’s statement was of little importance.

”In reality, it was a meeting of pals that defend the status quo of the previous powers”, she stated.

Commitee of experts

Law and Justice will appoint a committee of experts to prepare another review of the law regulating the constitutional court, she added. Her party claims this will solve the dispute around the court.

It remains unclear whether courts will follow the supreme court’s advice. It also failed to calm some of those who worry about the risk of a duality of laws in Poland.

Journalist Michal Szuldrzynski wrote in a comment in the Rzeczpospolita daily that the supreme court wants well, but it won’t change the fact that the government and parliamentary majority doesn't recognise the constitutional court’s judgements.

“It’s not the case that Law and Justice politicians lack arguments in this conflict”, he wrote.

“Some lawyers share their arguments, not only for political reasons. The substance is that this conflict is turning into a war … and this war is ruining the Polish state.”