Poland’s lower house, the Sejm, on Friday, July 28th, voted in favor of an amended anti-Russian influence law. Under the law, a committee can be set up to look into whether Polish politicians make decisions under Russia’s influence that could threaten Poland’s security.
In what was a rejection of the Senate’s veto on the draft law, newly amended by President Andrzej Duda, the Sejm, where his Law and Justice (PiS) party holds a majority, voted 235-214 with four abstentions.
It now only requires Duda’s signature on the dotted line. While the previous law is currently in effect, the commission members have not yet been elected.
Last month, about half a million Poles took to the streets of Warsaw in protest, with the original writing of the law as their main bone of contention, which they claimed would undermine the country’s democracy.
In particular, there were concerns that politicians who were convicted would be banned from holding public office for up to ten years.
That aspect of it earned the draft law the nickname ‘Lex Tusk’—a reference to former Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Tusk and his Civic Coalition (KO) is the main competitor of Duda’s PiS party in Poland’s general elections this fall and critics suspect he was the intended target of the law.
Law and Justice accuses Tusk of having been too friendly toward Russia as prime minister between 2007 and 2014, and brokering gas deals favorable to Russia before he went to Brussels to be the president of the European Council between 2014 and 2019. The party’s leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, and Tusk are known as longtime political rivals.
Duda has said the law was needed to create more transparency in government to prevent Russia’s destabilization efforts.
While ‘Lex Tusk’ was already adopted by the Sejm in May, following criticism at home as well as from the EU and the U.S., President Duda prepared a toned-down version in June.
According to Polish media, these amendments would scrap the special committee’s ability to ban people from politics, and MPs are now no longer eligible to sit on it.
In addition, Duda sent the updated bill to the Constitutional Tribunal for review. Its verdict is, however, still pending.
Despite these alterations, the Venice Commission, an advisory body for the Council of Europe, has come out strongly against the law.
Its timing, so close to the elections, would create an uneven playing field and would give the committee too much leeway. “The Law does not offer any guarantees against political misuse, and it may have an influence on the electoral process,” the Commission notes.
“The amending draft law cannot remedy its fundamental flaws,” its conclusion states, as it sees a wholesale repeal of the law as the only solution.
