On Thursday, the Sejm decided to waive the immunity of erstwhile head of the MON, PiS MP Mariusz Błaszczak. This is related to the declassified in September 2023 part of the paper of the plan to usage the Polish Armed Forces "Warta".
245 Members voted against, 187 opposed and 6 abstained. "For" voted 152 MPs KO, 32 PSL-TD, 29 Polski2050-TD, 21 Left, 5 Confederates and 5 MPs Together. There were 181 PiS MPs, 4 Confederates and 2 Republicans.
Mr Błaszczak had previously dealt with the Sejm in a secret sitting.
"I had a duty."
During a press conference before the session of the Sejm, Błaszczak argued that as Minister of Defence he had the right to declassified archival materials.
"I will say that I had a work to the people of east Poland" - he said. In turn, PiS president Jarosław Kaczyński stressed before the gathering that the full issue was "political operation, which unfortunately resembles distant years".
"Which is intended to intimidate, not so much us, but Polish society. It is to introduce a fresh atmosphere, 1 that has not been in Poland since communism. It is intended to make this democratic will fall in Poland" - said the head of the Law and Justice Office.
According to the president of PiS, the full case is "pretextual". "What is the subject of prosecution, from a legal point of view, has no basis. The Minister of Defence and another distributors of applicable materials have the right to declassified them. It's a substance of assessing them. In this case, there's no harm in it, and it couldn't be. Only those who made specified decisions can endure the only damage" - said Kaczyński.
Prosecutor's charges
The motion to waive the immunity of Błaszczak went to the Sejm in early February. The Prosecutor's Office wants to charge him with exceeding his powers because, as the head of the MON, he declassified in July 2023 and publically revealed in September 2023 fragments of the Plan for the usage of the Armed Forces of Poland WARTA-00101. The plan is simply a 2011 paper on how to defend against possible Russian attack. citing this document, Błaszczak then accused PO politicians that during the time of their regulation they planned to defend the state on the Vistula line in the event of an invasion and "give the attacker half the country".
Last summer, the head of the SKW General Jarosław Guardian filed a study in the prosecutor's office about a suspected crime by the manager of the MON.
The territory Attorney's Office in Warsaw is investigating this case.
The Prosecutor's Office concluded that Błaszczak acted in violation of the law erstwhile deciding to abolish the classification, since the documents, although they were in the Military Historical Office, did not cease the statutory grounds for the protection of classified information contained therein.
Proc. Anna Adamiak's spokesperson in February pointed out that although the minister had the competence to decide whether to abolish or change the classification given to certain documents, it could only do so after having obtained the consent of the individual who gave the clause.
"In the case of operational planning documents, approval to declassified papers should be given by the Chief of the General Staff, as it is the General Staff of the HR-Office for Planning the usage of the Armed Forces and Training that performs and assigns a classification of this category of documents" - noted the D.A. and stressed that MON "has not obtained specified consent or even informed the Chief of the General Staff of the intention to declassified documents".
"The intention and decision to declassified any of the papers concerning the defence of the Republic of Poland was not informed by the president of Poland, who introduced the Political-Strategic Defence Directive of the Republic of Poland with the decision of 17 July 2015. The National safety Office at the President's Chancellery did not have this cognition either," PG spokeswoman quoted.
PAP
