Law and Justice
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| President-elect: Lech Kaczyński |
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| Political Parties: LPR PD PiS PO PSL SDPL SLD SRP UP |
| Elections Presidential (after 1989): 1990 1995 2000 2005 Parliamentary (after 1989): 1989 1991 1993 1997 2001 2005 European Parliament: 2004 Polish referenda Local elections |
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Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) (PiS) is a Polish political party, established in 2001, by the Kaczyński twins: Lech, the former justice minister, the current mayor of the capital, Warsaw, and the president-elect of Poland, and Jarosław, who is the President of the party. A large proportion of party members came from various small member parties of the now defunct Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność coalition.
In the 2001 elections PiS gained 44 (of 460) seats in the lower chamber of the Polish Parliament (Sejm) with 9.5% votes. In the 2004 European Parliamentry elections, the party came in third, receiving 13% of votes and 7 of 54 seats reserved for Poland in the European Parliament, as part of the Union for a Europe of Nations.
For most of 2004 and 2005, opinion polls put PiS at the second or third position, with the liberal Citizens Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) being in the lead. For a few years, a coalition of PO and PiS has been believed to be most likely to form the government after the upcoming parliamentary election. In the elections PiS unexpectedly took first place with 27% votes, which gave it 155 out of 460 seats in the Sejm and 49 out of 100 seats in the senate, however a PO-PiS coalition with a total of 288 seats in the Sejm lacks a supermajority of 2/3 required to effectively carry out its proposed reforms.
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Political program
PiS demands better public safety and a reform of the legal system to fight crime more effectively - including advocacy of the death penalty. PiS's rhetoric is particularly aggressive about fighting corruption. The party supported Poland's European Union accession, but projects a more Eurosceptic and more populist overall image than PO does. The party's public profile is dominated by two popular politicians, the brothers Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński. While its economic policies are seen by many as considerably more socialist then those of PO, they are actually based on the anti-socialist Social Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
Attitude to homosexuals' political and job rights
As mayor of Warsaw, PiS leader Lech Kaczyński refused authorisation for the Equality Parade for gay rights on June 11, 2005 in Warsaw. The Parade took place in spite of this, and eggs, stones and bottles were thrown at participants by young people (nearly all men) from the Młodzież Wszechpolska youth organisation (associated with the League of Polish Families), injuring at least two people, who were hospitalised.[1]
As reported by PAP on September 21, 2005, Jarosław Kaczyński said that homosexuals should not be teachers, but that homosexuals would not be persecuted.[2] On September 22, 2005, another member of PiS, Adam Bielan, in an interview on TVP, made statements indicating that PiS does not yet have a clear policy on whether or not homosexuals should be accepted in jobs in which there is close contact with children.[3]
In October 2005, the European Commission warned that if Kaczyński in his role as President continues to oppose gay rights and seeks to introduce the death penalty, Poland could temporarily lose its voting rights in the European Union. [4]
Leaders
- Lech Kaczyński (Warszawa) - President-elect, President of Warsaw
- Jarosław Kaczyński (Warszawa) - party chairman
- Ludwik Dorn (Pruszków) - Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Interior and Administration, party vice chairman
- Marek Jurek (Rzeszów) - Marshal of the Sejm, party vice chairman
- Adam Lipiński (Jelenia Góra) - party vice chairman
- Kazimierz Ujazdowski (Wrocław) - Minister of Culture and National Heritage, party vice chairman
Members of Polish Parliament (Sejm) (2001-2005)
MP, constituency
- Anna Borucka-Cieślewicz, Poznań, from 2004
- Wojciech Borzuchowski, Białystok
- Tadeusz Cymański, Gdańsk
- Andrzej Diakonow, Opole
- Ludwik Dorn, Warszawa
- Jacek Falfus, Bielsko-Biała
- Józef Fortuna, Chrzanów
- Szymon Giżyński, Częstochowa
- Przemysław Gosiewski, Kielce
- Wojciech Jasiński, Płock
- Marek Jurek, Rzeszów
- Jarosław Kaczyński, Warszawa
- Mariusz Kamiński, Warszawa
- Elżbieta Kruk, Lublin
- Piotr Krzywicki, Sieradz
- Marek Kuchciński, Krosno
- Adam Lipiński, Legnica
- Andrzej Liss, Gdańsk
- Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Gorzów Wielkopolski - Zielona Góra
- Barbara Marianowska, Tarnów
- Tomasz Markowski, Bydgoszcz
- Antoni Mężydło, Toruń
- Hanna Mierzejewska, Warszawa
- Marek Muszyński, Wrocław
- Maria Nowak, Katowice
- Ryszard Nowak, Nowy Sącz
- Bolesław Piecha, Rybnik
- Marian Piłka, Siedlce
- Jerzy Polaczek, Katowice
- Paweł Poncyljusz, Warszawa
- Jacek Sauk, Szczecin
- Małgorzata Stryjska, Poznań
- Marek Suski, Radom
- Wojciech Szarama, Gliwice
- Aleksander Szczygło, Olsztyn
- Jolanta Szczypińska, Gdynia
- Bartłomiej Szrajber, Warszawa
- Kazimierz Ujazdowski, Wrocław
- Zbigniew Wassermann, Kraków
- Elżbieta Więcławska-Sauk, Łódź
- Artur Zawisza, Warszawa
- Jarosław Zieliński, Białystok
- Zbigniew Ziobro, Kraków
Members of Polish Senate (2001-2005)
Members of European Parliament
- Adam Bielan, politician
- Anna Fotyga, international trade expert, vicepresident-mayor of Gdansk 2002-2004
- Mieczysław Janowski, doctor of technical sciences, local activist
- Michał Kamiński, journalist and politician
- Marcin Libicki, arts historian and politician
- Wojciech Roszkowski historian, professor of politics
- Konrad Szymański, lawyer, journalist and politician
The PiS MEPs belong to the Union for a Europe of Nations caucus.
See also
External links
