The interview with the president dates back to June 4. This is mainly a summary of the presidential election, but the passage that concerns the improvement of the judiciary will most likely go back to history.
Storm after Duda mocked prof. Strzembosz
– Mr. Editor, I will tell you what will should be done if there is always a credible and honest authority in Poland. Unfortunately, we will gotta take, sum up and settle the judges' state in Poland, but starting in '89. And to all the judges who were dirty in communism, take the states of rest, if they are inactive alive – started his speech Duda.
He continued to claim that present the environment is trying to treat the judges appointed in the last 10 years worse (the alleged neo-judges nominated by Duda – ed.) than the Polish-Polish judges.
– The Polish United Workers' Party, members of this party, many of whom issued sentences based on prison state regulations, condemning opponents to long-term prisons and which they did not verify after 1989, due to the fact that as prof. Strzembosz said, "the justice and judicial environment will purify itself". Nothing cleared itself, including the full number – we heard.
How Andrzej Duda mocked the voice of Prof. Adam Strzembosz, and that he committed something like this at all, caused shock and an avalanche of comments from politicians, experts, average people.
"The coward who broke the Constitution present mocks a 94-year-old professor" commented on X MP Tomasz Trela.
MP Zbigniew Konwiński: "President of the Republic? A man who infantilely mocks an older man? Nestor of Polish judges. It's an embarrassing fall and a moral disaster."
The constitutionalist, Prof. Ryszard Balicki: "The ridicule of another man, regardless of differences of views or ideological disputes, is simply unacceptable. And erstwhile it falls from the President's mouth, it is not only an expression of disrespect towards a peculiar person, but besides of destroying our public debate."
Prof. Adam Strzembosz, who has been critical of him since the beginning of Andrzej Duda's presidency, accepts his behaviour with calmness.
Prof. Adam Strzembosz responds to Duda's loud behavior
– I don't have any intercourse with this. I found out late. I took it calmly. I will admit that rather indifferently – he comments on the subject with prof. Adam Strzembosz.
The erstwhile I president of the ultimate Court adds: "I have been very critical of the President. The president has responded as he felt appropriate. I'm not going to comment on that. Everyone has their ways of communicating and I accept it.
We ask how he would sum up Andrzej Duda's presidency.
– These were years of large importance. In my opinion, this president did not fulfil the function that he could be expected to play. He as a guardian of the regulation of law and the constitution should have worked with all those who want to reconstruct constitutional order, a regulation of law based on the 3 divisions of power. The President, not only did he not act in this regard, but he made a crucial contribution to the legal disorder, to the deficiency of order in the most important, fundamental matters, for the state's system, says Prof. Strzembosz.
Prof. Strzembosz on president Duda's breaking of the Constitution
The erstwhile I president of the SN publically spoke many times about Duda's actions. In 2017, erstwhile the Sejm passed 2 laws amending the functioning of the KRS and the SN, he appealed to him:
– Mr President, I address you not only in my own name. On behalf of millions of Poles who anticipate your historical decision. You will go to the past pages or as a man who stood up for the Constitution and truly saved democracy in Poland, or you will be on the past pages as the first president in free Poland to let the Constitution to be broken in many places.
He said the president was expected to be the guardian of the Constitution, and he broke it many times. In 2023 Prof. Strzembosz said in an interview with "Rzeczpospolita" that he erstwhile counted 13 cases of violation of the constitution, and then waved his hand and stopped counting.
In 2024, Andrzej Duda said about him on Radio Zet that "he is 1 of the people who are liable for the fact that in the Polish justice strategy there were communist judges who were tainted with belonging to the PZPR, and any who were tainted with issuing martial sentences": "So I think that his speaking on this subject is at least out of place.
Prof. Strzembosz replied to this in an interview with Wp.pl: – During the time erstwhile I was the first president of the SN most judges left in a state of rest. There was a fresh election for all judges. There's never been specified a cleansing in court as in the ultimate Court just for my office. But what I'm going to discuss with the president, a mediocre pensioner towards specified a head of state.
Prof. Strzembosz: – I do not know what presidency begins
When we are asking about cases of violation of the constitution today, how many could there have been, prof. Strzembosz says present that he did not count.
– I don't know. There were quite a few them. These were his individual decisions contrary to the constitution and signing laws openly contrary to the constitution. Each of us knows that there were laws on the National Judiciary Council, on the Constitutional Court, on the ultimate Court – he says.
I'd like to ask him if he's breathing with relief that this presidency is ending. But it would be easier if individual else were to win Andrzej Duda at the Presidential Palace.
– I don't know how the presidency starts. So I don't know if I can breathe with relief or not. We'll shortly find out if it's like the presidency or better. All another possibilities are ahead too. possibly the fresh president will want to make his own political camp, due to the fact that there is no political background. And this can make different fresh political arrangements in the country – he says on Thematic.
