Polish president reverses Russian influence law. After concerns that he signed legislation on undue Russian influence this week may prohibit opposition lawmakers from public service, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said he would offer modifications on Friday.
This week, Duda signed a ruling party bill allowing a panel to investigate whether opposition parties allowed Russia to influence Poland. On Monday, he said he would submit it to the Constitutional Tribunal after it took effect.
Lawyers, opposition lawmakers, and the U.S. State Department and European Commission voiced worries that the measure might exclude people from public office without judicial scrutiny.
“Appalled by these allegations… I have prepared an amendment to the law, a series of provisions which regulate or amend the issues in this law which aroused the greatest controversies,” Duda said on television.
He claimed the proposed reforms would bar parliamentarians from joining the commission, allow appeals to a general court instead of an administrative court, and remove measures that would ban people from office.
“I propose removing those measures, leaving only a commission statement that a person acting under Russian influence does not guarantee the proper performance of public duties,” he said.
On Friday, Duda will present his plan to parliament.
Opposition legislators criticized the president for changing his mind on a bill he signed days before and argued the suggested modifications did not address establishing such a body.
The president’s social pressure-induced addendum doesn’t change anything. “The entire law establishing this illegal kangaroo court should end up in the trash,” PSL leader Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz tweeted.
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