Poland’s justice minister Adam Bodnar has requested parliamentary immunity be lifted for former defence minister in the last Conservative (PiS) government Mariusz Błaszczak.
Bodnar did so on February 5 in a bid to enable Błaszczak to face criminal prosecution for allegedly revealing state secrets about Poland’s defence capabilities.
In September 2023, just a month before October’s election, Błaszczak allegedly revealed military documents showing how, under the previous Tusk government, Poland’s defence tactics in event of war were to retreat from the East of the country and defend the West of Poland only.
He supposedly published parts of military plans his government inherited from the previous Donald Tusk-led administration (2007-2015).
Błaszczak, who is currently the head of the PiS parliamentary caucus, has been accused of disclosing classified information.
If found guilty, he could be jailed for up to five years.
PiS has been traditionally stronger in the East, whereas Tusk’s Civic Coalition has tended to draw more support in the more affluent and liberal West.
The PiS had consistently argued that the previous Tusk government had disarmed Poland and was not committed to defending the whole of Polish territory.
It has also claimed the military doctrine of the time was that Poland, in event of attack, would retreat and wait for assistance from NATO partners to recover ground.
The PiS, during its time in government (2015-2023), changed Poland’s military strategy so that the whole of the country’s territory would be defended. It also boosted military spending, especially in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
After returning to government, Tusk’s officials submitted to prosecutors allegations that Błaszczak had broken state secrets when revealing the strategy.
The prosecution service, which was taken over by Tusk appointees on February 5 without the legal requirement of a Presidential countersignature, alleged that Błaszczak exceeded his powers in order “to gain personal benefits for his political group”.
In doing so, the prosecutors claimed he “acted to the detriment of the public interest and caused exceptionally serious damage to Poland, threatening its independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, international position and the cohesion of the North Atlantic Alliance [NATO]”.
The prosecutors did not explain how historic plans that have been superseded by radically different assumptions and plans could damage Poland’s or NATO’s military capability.
Still, they alleged that Błaszczak had given unauthorised personnel access to to military archives and failed to receive consent from the chief of staff for declassifying documents.
In their statement, the prosecutors did make the political rather than legal judgment that the declassified documents were selected to “lose the entire context of the strategy” so that PiS could claim that Tusk’s government planned to give up half of Poland.
Talking to media on February 5, Błaszczak argued that he had made the decision to declassify the documents to protect Poland’s security, not threaten it.
“I had the right and even the obligation to make the public aware of what happened” under the previous PO government, he said, adding that he “would do it again, without hesitation”.
He was defended by his party colleagues, including PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, who called Bodnar’s decision “a purely political action that has nothing to do with the law”.
PiS MP and former deputy justice minister Sebastian Kaleta called the decision to prosecute Błaszczak an act of “revenge for the fact that Poles learned the truth that in the event of Russian aggression, millions of Poles would automatically end up under Russian occupation”.
Since coming to power in 2023, the Tusk government has launched a spate of investigations against officials of the last PiS government.
That has led to indictments for alleged abuses of power, with PiS accusing the new administration of seeking “political revenge” and aiming to discredit PiS in the eyes of voters ahead of May’s presidential election.
