Polish special services searched the homes of former government officials on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 26th and 27th, as part of an investigation into alleged misuse of funds. Opposition lawmakers are fuming at what they see as yet another attempt by the recently installed Tusk government to purge its political foes.
On Tuesday, special services forced their way into the home of former justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, who served in the previous conservative government. On Wednesday, they searched the home of former deputy justice minister Michał Woś and another house belonging to Ziobro’s family, Reuters reports. Three former justice ministry officials and one other person were detained.
According to the prosecutor’s office, the investigation relates to alleged misuse of money from the Justice Fund, managed by the Justice Ministry, and set up to help victims of crime and help rehabilitate criminals. Left-wing media reports accused Ziobro of using the fund for political purposes: handing out grants to districts where members of his party were standing for elections and spending some of the money on the so-called Pegasus spyware to spy on opposition politicians. Ziobro denies the allegations and called the police raids “illegal.” He said they were carried out on the orders of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and current Justice Minister Adam Bodnar.
The left-liberal government of Donald Tusk came into power in December, after succeeding in forming a coalition government where the election winners, Law and Justice (PiS) had failed to do so. Tusk promised to hold to account anyone who “broke the law” during the eight years of the previous government. After the raids, Tusk tweeted: “Let the law always mean the law, and justice is justice,” a clear mockery of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
His government has wasted no time in hunting down its political opponents: it dismissed the top executives of the public service broadcaster, jailed two PiS MPs, and replaced the country’s prosecutors. The next in line could be the president of the central bank who may be dragged before a special tribunal. The Tusk government is alleging that the National Bank of Poland among other things adjusted monetary policy before the October election to benefit the ousted PiS party.
Despite these worrying signs that the law is being misused for political purposes, EU institutions which regularly lambasted the conservative government for so-called ‘rule of law’ violations, are now not voicing their concerns. In fact, the EU is rewarding Poland with the unblocking of funds that were frozen during the tenure of the PiS government. EU leaders have made no secret of the fact that they favour Tusk over PiS because of his political stance and his commitment to EU “values.”
Patryk Jaki, a member of the European Parliament for Sovereign Poland—the former coalition partner of PiS—accused the new authorities of using “gangster methods” against its opponents and of investigating the Justice Fund “because only leftist organisations are allowed to receive money.” Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called the raids “political revenge” and the desire by the Tusk government to draw attention away from the fact that it had only fulfilled 12 out of 100 promises in its first 100 days in office.
The investigation comes at a time of increased political pressure on the government as it faces its first electoral test with the local elections on April 7th, followed by the European elections on June 9th.