Committee ruling

The Sejm ethics committee reprimanded PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński on Tuesday, 20 October, for calling police officers "militias of the ruling party" during a July commemoration of the Smolensk air crash in Warsaw. MP Ewa Schädler (Polska 2050), a member of the committee, announced the decision. The committee can impose a remark, an admonition or a reprimand (nagana). The punished MP may appeal within 14 days of receiving the resolution on the penalty.

What Kaczyński said on 10 July

On the morning of 10 July, Kaczyński went to Piłsudski Square in Warsaw with a group of PiS politicians and Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the president's chancellery, to lay wreaths before the monuments to President Lech Kaczyński and to the Victims of the 2010 Smolensk Tragedy, as he does every month. Protesters were already on the square, and police were keeping order. Officers did not let the PiS politicians reach the Lech Kaczyński monument directly, so the wreaths were laid at some distance from it.

Kaczyński then accused police of failing to act while participants in the monthly commemorations were insulted and attacked by provocateurs who appear at the counter-demonstration each month. He said he did not take the death threats seriously, but that police were obliged to intervene in such situations. He told reporters the officers were shielding the other side while participants were targeted. He added that everything would have to be rebuilt from the start and that a civic guard would have to be formed.

“We are in fact dealing right now with the militias of the ruling party, not with the police, and conclusions will have to be drawn from this.”

His words were spoken while he walked toward the monument to the Victims of the Smolensk Tragedy, a detail the reports place at the moment of the remark.

Interior ministry reaction and motion

Interior and Administration Minister Marcin Kierwiński responded in a post on X, calling Kaczyński's conduct toward the police "scandalous". He wrote that officers keep public order and the safety of every citizen, and he addressed Kaczyński directly, saying the time of politicians above the law had passed.

“It is a disgrace that the former deputy prime minister for security attacks police officers and the Polish uniform.”

Maria Janyska of KO, who chairs the Sejm administration and internal affairs committee, said that after talking with the minister she would ask her committee's presidium to refer a motion to punish Kaczyński to the ethics committee. The motion was therefore pursued through the Sejm's own procedures rather than a court or the police.

Sequence of events

The remarks were made on 10 July, and the interior minister's reply and Janyska's announced motion both followed in July. The committee's decision came later, on Tuesday, 20 October. The chart below places these three dated points in order, with the July beats given at month precision because the sources do not give a single day for the reply and the motion.

The committee's ruling is a reprimand, and the decision does not change the policing dispute the remarks concerned. The sources do not report any further steps by police, and the appeal window of 14 days is the only follow-up stated in the reports.