We asked the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Health about the basis for the introduction of the national quarantine and information about the Medical Council, which was supposed to be a subsidiary body of the Prime Minister. Instead of information, we got a demonstration of different ways to inform about… the lack of information.

We are winning against the epidemic and implementing the National Quarantine

Do you still remember the national quarantine? Just over two weeks after Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that “we are winning against the epidemic” on 17 December 2020, the government announced a plan for further restrictions – a national quarantine lasting from 28 December for three weeks. Attention was drawn to the fact that the threshold of incidence cases had not been reached, which, according to earlier announcements, was supposed to condition the introduction of the national quarantine. As it has become customary, the new regulation was announced at a press conference. The Minister of Health Adam Niedzielski during a conference at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister said:

Appeals alone are not enough, which is why we are implementing the national quarantine from 28 December to 17 January.

Shopping malls, hotels, ski slopes were closed, and travel restrictions were announced for New Year’s Eve. The national quarantine soon came to be referred to by a softer term – “a stage of accountability”. Call it what it is, we wanted to know more about the basis for this decision. Therefore, on 18 December 2020, we sent a request for public information to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Health, in which we asked: 

What was the basis for the decision to implement the National Quarantine – additional security rules? Please send any legal analysis/expertise/opinions/other documents which formed the basis for the above decision and indicate the names of the authors of the above types of documents with the affiliation of the authors (indicate the company or department of the Ministry where they are employed). 

Method 1. Traditional. The Chancellery of the Prime Minister does not possess the requested information

We have not received any response for over a month. On 22 January 2021, well after the maximum statutory deadline for providing us with the information, we sent a reminder. Three days later, we received a letter in which we could read:

In response to the request of 18 December of the current year sent to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister to the ePUAP box, I would like to clarify that the information on the implementation of the National Quarantine was announced by the Minister of Health, Mr. A. Niedzielski. To obtain the requested information, I suggest you contact the Ministry of Health directly.

At the same time, I would like to inform you that the Chancellery of the Prime Minister does not possess the requested information.

We were not too surprised to learn that “the Chancellery of the Prime Minister does not possess the requested information”. This is actually a traditional response to most of our requests for public information sent to the Chancellery during the pandemic. We have already written about it in many texts (we collected a list of them here). We can only imagine how hard it is to run a country with a population of over 37.5 million people while “not possessing the information”, however, the Prime Minister seems not to have complained yet. 

Method 2. We saw nothing, heard nothing. The Ministry of Health does not have the requested documents

As you may recall, we also asked the Ministry of Health. We received a response on 7 January 2021. 

The Ministry of Health kindly informs that decisions on the content of the Regulation of the Council of Ministers were made collectively by the Council of Ministers, with the help of the findings from the meetings of the Government Crisis Management Team with the participation of experts, therefore the Ministry of Health does not possess the requested documents.

So the Chancellery “does not possess the information” and referred us to the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Health “does not have the requested documents” and implicitly refers us to the Chancellery. Perhaps we would be very surprised if we had not already been through this. 

On 15 February, we sent a letter to the Ministry of Health in which we supported our request and asked how it was possible that neither the Minister of Health nor the Prime Minister were able or willing to answer questions about the basis for introducing significant restrictions on the lives of all citizens and that they referred to each other. We also pointed out that we had found it hard to imagine that the Ministry did not have any of the documents that had formed the basis for such an important decision for everyone. We have not received any explanation yet.

[Updated 04.03.21] On February 25, we received the following reply from the Ministry of Health which, apart from reminding us what we had requested, contains only one sentence. It does not even attempt to explain anything to us:

The Ministry of Health kindly informs, and maintains the stance communicated in a letter dated 31 December 2020

The Ministry therefore maintains its stance of “not possessing the requested documents”. It has not been changed even by a reply from the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, indicating that it is in the Ministry of Health that we will receive answers to our questions. Therefore, now we have addressed an analogous request for clarification to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. Will we finally know on what basis the decision to implement the national quarantine was made? The chances are small. 

Exercising the right to information should not resemble catching somebody in a lie and playing piggy in the middle at the same time. The only thing left for us to do is to file a notification to the Prosecutor’s Office under Article 23 of the Act on Access to Public Information 

Whoever, contrary to their obligation, fails to make public information available, shall be subject to a fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment for up to one year

concerning the Ministry of Health and, as it will probably turn out, also the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. 

Method 3 The Medical Council. We do not record or produce documents

In a separate motion dated 2 February 2021, we also enquired about the Medical Council. “Mythical experts” (a quote by Mateusz Morawiecki, who joked that in the absence of information, the existence of these advisors was doubted) were presented on 7 November 2020.

On the website of the Chancellery we can read that:

The Medical Council is a subsidiary body of the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. It consists of a chairperson – the Prime Minister’s chief advisor on COVID-19 related issues, Prof. Andrzej Horban, and over fifteen medical experts. The Medical Council is primarily tasked with analyzing and evaluating the current situation in the country, developing action proposals, and providing opinions on legislation – such as regulations introducing new rules and restrictions in the country.

Order No. 205 of the Prime Minister dated 6 November 2020 on the establishment of the Medical Council for COVID-19 under the Prime Minister defines the tasks of the Council as follows:

• making analyses and assessments of the current health situation in the country, with particular emphasis on the epidemic situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic;

• preparing and proposing actions to improve the national health situation against COVID-19;

• providing opinions on draft bills and other government documents with significant impact on health care issues related to combating COVID-19;

• performing other tasks ordered by the Prime Minister.

Additionally, according to the order:

Section 7. The Chairperson of the Council may commission experts to prepare analyses, forecasts, expert opinions, opinions or concepts and draft solutions within the scope of the Council’s activities.

We asked both the Chancellery and the Ministry of Health, in the event of possible referrals, about:

1. the dates of all meetings of the Council (since the date of its establishment), and information on who attended the meetings, other than members of the Council (in terms of name and function);
2. whether any documents were produced as a result of the Council’s activities, including the documents being a result of the aforementioned meetings, and as referred to in Section 2 points 1-4 and Section 7 of Order No. 205 of the Prime Minister dated 6 November 2020 on the establishment of the Medical Council for COVID-19 under the Prime Minister. If so, we request a list of the documents produced.

The Ministry of Health forwarded our request to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. We received a reply of the Chancellery on 17 February.

A summary of the meetings of the Medical Council was provided. They were also attended by the Minister of Health Adam Niedzielski and the “representatives of the Chancellery management”.

The composition of this year’s meetings was similar. One of the meetings, on 8.01.2021, was attended by the Minister of Education and Science, Przemysław Czarnek.

What about the documents produced by the Medical Council?

Regarding point 2 of the proposal, I inform that the Medical Council meetings are not minuted. No other documents were produced either.

So how does the Medical Council “make analyses, assessments of the current health situation in the country, prepare and present proposals, give opinions on draft bills and other government documents with significant impact on health care issues related to combating COVID-19” without taking minutes or producing any documents?

We may be traditionalists, but it would seem that using the invention of writing in these activities might make things easier. And it would certainly increase the transparency of these activities. Interestingly, going back to the implementation of the National Quarantine, the decision to introduce it was “somewhat surprising”. This is how Prof. Magdalena Marczyńska from the Medical University of Warsaw, a member of the Medical Council spoke to PAP about the decision:

We have been pointing out, as the Medical Council, to the government that people will not stay home during the cumulative holidays if this is talked about in the context of winter recreation. We pointed out that a national quarantine preceding vaccination would be easier for the public to accept. The government was supposed to study this matter and decide what to do. Today’s conference was a bit of a surprise to me because we did not have information about the already adopted solutions, as we have been working very hard lately on the logistics of vaccination. However, I was even more surprised by the form in which the restrictions were announced, because there was, in my opinion, no clear indication of what the purpose of these measures was that could be calmly and logically explained.

So how surprised do you feel by the fact of “not possessing information” and such a way of communication, also in response to requests for public information?