Poland’s parliament has passed legislation to abolish the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) and transfer its powers to other agencies.
But the legislation is unlikely to take effect because it is opposed by the opposition-allied President Karol Nawrocki.
The CBA had been formed in 2006 during the lifetime of the then-Conservative (PiS) government.
The present centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, though, has vowed to abolish it as it alleges the body has been discredited because it was allegedly used politically by PiS.
Introducing the legislation in parliament on March 13, Tomasz Siemoniak, the minister responsible for coordinating security services, said the abolition was necessary because the CBA had become “politicised”.
He pointed to the fact that former heads of the agency Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik (both now MEPs) had been convicted for abuse of power.
The were convicted for organising a sting operation uncovering alleged corruption in the ranks of the Civic Coalition (KO) party led by Tusk.
Siemoniak also pointed to the fact that the CBA had controversially been instrumental in the purchase and use of the Pegasus spyware during the lifetime of the last PiS government (2015-2023). He accused it of having used it to spy on political opponents rather than suspected criminals.
PiS defends the use of Pegasus saying it was used in hundreds of cases of criminal investigations only a small proportion of which involved politicians.
The proposed legislation would scrap the CBA and transfer its responsibilities to the Internal Security Agency (ABW), the National Revenue Administration (KAS) and the police, where a new specialist unit, the Central Bureau for Combating Corruption, would be created.
“We want to create a functional system in which the police can effectively combat corruption. We do not need another special service for this purpose,” argued Siemoniak.
The opposition PiS, though, argues that abolishing the CBA would be a signal the state was abandoning the fight against corruption that would be damaging to the country’s security.
It also accused the Tusk government of a conducting revenge act over the fact the CBA had uncovered corruption in the ranks of the KO.
The Tusk government has, over the past two years, produced a raft of indictments against former PiS government officials concentrating on abuse of power and misuse of public funds. That drive has been led by the internal security agency and the prosecution rather than the CBA.
Nawrocki’s chief of staff Zbigniew Bogucki had made clear in advance of the parliamentary vote that the bill would be vetoed.
“I don’t know of any other government in democratic Europe that would want to liquidate an institution that fights corruption,” Bogucki told reporters yesterday.
“Liquidating the CBA was your dream, but I can tell you today that this dream will be in vain. Nothing will come of it, the President does not consent to this,” insisted Bogucki.
According to the government, though, if the President does veto the legislation the Tusk administration will transfer many of the CBA’s tasks to the police and other agencies anyway.
The Conservatives (PiS) Polish name translates as “Law and Justice” because the party was founded in 2001 around the need to combat corruption and lawlessness off the back of the popularity of the then-justice minister Lech Kaczyński, the twin brother of the current leader Jarosław Kaczyński.
Lech Kaczyński was later (2005) elected president of Poland but perished in the Smolensk air disaster of 2010.
The first PiS government led by Kaczyński (2005-2007) made the creation of the anti-corruption CBA one of its flagship policies.
By then, the PiS had evolved into a party concentrating on social justice, preservation of traditional Catholic values and Polish sovereignty.
In the European Union, together with the British Conservative Party, it founded the European Conservative Reformers group in the European Parliament as a right-wing alternative to the ruling European People’s Party (EPP).
During its second spell in government (2015-2023) ,the party faced allegations of its officials’ involvement in the abuse of power and cronyism despite – and some say because of – the party’s attempts to reform the judiciary.
