Poland’s Constitutional Court ruled on July 17 that the country’s president has the right to grant pardons to individuals at any stage of the legal process, not only after they have been convicted.
This in effect means that current President Andrzej Duda was acting within his constitutional powers in 2015 when he pardoned the former head of Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) Mariusz Kamiński (pictured above, right, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki). At the time of the pardon, Mr Kamiński was appealing against a three-year sentence for abuse of office, and the trial was ongoing.
Mr Kamiński had been convicted of authorising a sting to trap a minister, but when issuing the pardon Mr Duda claimed that Mr Kamiński had acted in the national interest in order to expose corruption.
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Photo: premier.gov.pl
