On 20 December 2022 – just before Christmas, when Poles are busy with family matters, President Andrzej Duda – silently – signed a law that exempts from liability mayors who broke the law in connection with the organisation of the 2020 presidential ‘envelope elections’. The election finally took place in July 2020, the vote was traditional and Andrzej Duda was elected for another term.

Initially, however, the ruling majority sought at all costs to organise the presidential elections on the date already ordered before the pandemic – 10 May 2022. This was an extremely favourable solution for the United Right, as none of the candidates could campaign during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the President of Poland freely travelled around Poland ‘fighting the pandemic’, although this is in no way the role of this body.

Experts and the opposition pointed out that, in practice, elections could not be organised as the country was operating in a state of the natural disaster. The United Right argued that it had to hold the vote because it had already been ordered and not holding it would be a breach of the law. In reality, the elections did not take place on that date anyway. No one was held accountable for this, although there were reports to the prosecutor’s office.

To organise the vote, the ruling majority in one law introduced a provision taking the organisation of elections away from the National Electoral Commission and entrusting it to a ‘postal operator’. However, it was not until the next law, passed on 6 April 2020, that the Polish Post Office (Poczta Polska SA) was made the organiser of the elections. There was already too little time until the scheduled elections to wait for the law to be passed through the Senate (there is a month to do so), voted on again in the Sejm and given to the President for his signature.

Therefore, while the Senate was still proceeding with the law, Poczta Polska SA – not yet legally the organiser of the elections – demanded that the municipalities – which keep the electoral registers – hand them over to it. The mayors of the municipalities received, among others, expert opinions from the civil society organisations indicating that this demand was unlawful. Nevertheless, 19% of them handed over the voter registers to the postal operator. Sometimes this was their conscious decision, sometimes they acted under pressure from the voivodes (governmental representatives in the regions).

There are many indications that, in connection with the filing of criminal offence notices by the Citizens Network Watchdog Poland regarding mayors who transferred voters’ data to the Polish Post (which resulted in three indictments and one conditional discontinuance sentence), the United Right has adopted an abolition law. Since it was signed by the President, the transfer of data is not penalised and the law is retroactive.

As Szymon Osowski of the board of the Citizens Network Watchdog Poland points out:

We are not surprised by the President of the Republic’s signature. After all, he himself used every means at his disposal to win the elections. This law is an admission of guilt for the entire United Right and the President of Poland.

On 30 November 2022, the Citizens Network Watchdog Poland filed notices on all 16 voivodes had instigated the crime. Their letters of voivodes to mayors ended with the statement:

(…) it is a legal obligation for local authorities to provide the Post Office with the requested data.

The Abolition Act acknowledges that the transfer was a crime It does not cover incitement to commit a crime.

Additional information

• Abilition and Amnesty Act in original language (Polish) and translation of the Abolition and Amnesty Act (English)
• Opinion of Senate Legislators to the Amnesty and Abolition Act in original language (Polish) and translation of the opinion (English)
• Updated report on the state of play as regards illigal transfering of the voters list to Polish Post in April and May 2020 (English)
• Information on the signature by the President of Poland (on his official website) and description of the law that President signed prepared by his Chancellary (translation into English)

PREVIOUSLY (earlier ruling majority prepared a bill regulating that trasferring voters list in 2020 was not a crime. The proceedings of that bill were terminated)