The draft amendment to the Constitution presented by PSL on Thursday assumes the expiry of the terms of office of current Constitutional Tribunal judges, an application with candidates for judges submitted with the consent of the President, and then a one-time election of a new 15-member composition of the Constitutional Tribunal by a 3/5 majority of votes by the National Assembly, with five judges each being elected for 3, 6 and 9 years. To submit a bill amending the constitution, signatures of at least 92 MPs are required.
Grzegorz Płaczek, Paweł Jabłoński among the MPs who will join the team
The "renewal of the Constitutional Tribunal" is to be dealt with by a parliamentary team appointed on Friday by the Polish People's Party.
The Confederation is to be represented in the PSL team by MPs Grzegorz Płaczek and Michał Wawer. In an interview with PAP, Płaczek said that during the team's work they want to present the idea of the Confederation regarding TK and listen to the opinions of other clubs.
Kosiniak-Kamysz met with one of the Confederation's leaders, Sławomir Mentzen, on Thursday. They talked about the crisis surrounding the Constitutional Tribunal. On Friday, the president of PSL said that their conversation was "promising." He expressed hope for good cooperation within the constitutional reset project.
The PSL team on behalf of the Rozwoju Plus club will be joined by MPs: Krzysztof Szczucki and Paweł Jabłoński, as Szczucki informed PAP.
Club leader Mateusz Morawiecki appealed on Friday to support "both motions regarding the reset of the Constitutional Tribunal", i.e. - in his opinion - the motion of Rozwoju Plus for a vote of no confidence in the government and the bill on amending the constitution proposed by PSL.
Morawiecki said that Rozwoju Plus is ready to sign the People's Party's application since "there is a party from the ruling coalition, PSL, that wants to put such a proposal on the table." He added that he was ready to meet Kosiniak-Kamysz. We will sign the application of, for example, PSL, and you will sign our application. Let both of them be read in the Sejm in a moment, after a month's delay, he appealed.
Secretary of Poland 2050 Kamil Wnuk announced that the group's MP, Minister of Digitization Michał Gramatyka, will join the team on behalf of the club. On Thursday, Kosiniak-Kamysz assured that PSL "already has support in the coalition" for its proposals in the Constitutional Tribunal. In this context, he pointed to the MPs of the Polska 2050 club. As he added, together with the PSL MPs, there is already support from 47 MPs.
The head of the Razem group, Marcelina Zawisza, said during Friday's conference in the Sejm that the group responded positively to PSL's invitation to work in such a parliamentary team. At the same time, she emphasized that this "cannot be empty words." We really need to sit down and ensure Poland's security beyond political divisions, she said.
Razem co-chairman Adrian Zandberg said that the group has already talked to PSL on this matter and is joining the team with the intention of reaching a good compromise. He also informed that Razem has its own proposal and position regarding repairing the situation in the Constitutional Tribunal.
Firstly, the expiry of the current terms of office of judges of the Constitutional Tribunal and those elected by one side and those elected by the other side, and secondly, the adoption of new rules and securing them at the constitutional level, Zandberg said.
Center MP Elżbieta Burkiewicz informed that this topic has not been discussed in the club yet.
The coalition partners do not want to cooperate
The chairman of the KO club, Zbigniew Konwiński, said that the club "does not plan to take part" in the work of the PSL team. Other KO politicians tried not to comment on this matter on Friday. In the evening, Prime Minister Donald Tusk was asked to what extent the reset of the Constitutional Tribunal proposed by Kosiniak-Kamysz is possible. The head of government did not answer this question.
The head of the Left club, Anna-Maria Żukowska, declared her strong opposition to the PSL team's proposal regarding the Constitutional Tribunal. We will not take part in destroying the constitution, because that is what it is leading to, she said on Friday during the conference. She emphasized that the Constitution should now be defended and should not be changed "at the moment of intensification."
According to Żukowska, the PSL proposal changes the Polish political system to "a presidential system and this is not a topic in which the Left would like to participate."
PiS with its own team for events in the Constitutional Tribunal
On Friday, PiS vice-president Przemysław Czarnek announced that on that day the club would submit its own motion to the Sejm to establish a parliamentary team for events in the Constitutional Tribunal. At the press conference, he emphasized that the team would include MPs from the Confederation, the Confederation of the Polish Crown, Direct Democracy and independent MPs such as Janusz Kowalski.
Confederation MP Grzegorz Płaczek confirmed that together with MP Wawer - in addition to the PSL team - they will also join the PiS team. Development Plus MP Krzysztof Szczucki also announced to PAP that someone from the club will join the PiS team.
PiS deputy spokesman Mateusz Kurzejewski - when asked whether anyone from the PiS club would join the PSL team or whether he saw cooperation between the two teams - replied: "if anyone from PSL would like to join the PiS team, we cordially invite you."
How does PSL want to change the constitution?
PSL proposes adding a provision to the constitution according to which the National Assembly (the Sejm and the Senate sitting together, with a total of 560 parliamentarians) "may, upon a reasoned request of the National Council of the Judiciary, recognize the permanent inability of the Constitutional Tribunal to perform its tasks."
This would require a resolution to be adopted by the National Assembly by a majority of at least 3/5 of the statutory number of its members, i.e. the votes of at least 336 parliamentarians. According to the PSL proposal, after adopting such a resolution, the National Assembly would elect 15 Constitutional Tribunal judges in one vote, by the same majority - five each for terms of 3, 6 and 9 years.
An application containing candidates for Constitutional Tribunal judges from among persons "with outstanding legal knowledge" would be submitted by the Marshal of the Sejm after seeking the opinion of, among others, the first presidents of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court and obtaining the prior consent of the President of the Republic of Poland.
