Poland risks new clash with EU over the death penalty

Poland’s hardline conservative government has opened up a new front in its increasingly fractious relationship with the rest of the EU, after its Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said he backed a return of the death penalty, which is banned in the bloc.

Mr Morawiecki said the country needed a “rethink” of its position, describing the post-Cold War abolition of capital punishment “was a premature innovation of the 1990s”.

Speaking during a public question-and-answer session with Facebook users, he argued there were clear cases for ordering executions.

“The death penalty for the most serious crimes should be allowed,” he said.

“If we are dealing with, for example, a serial killer – where the evidence leaves no doubt – or with a war criminal.

“Such cases are unfortunately very common.”

Mr Morawiecki, who has been Prime Minister since 2017, added this was his personal opinion and not an official position, while a government spokesman later said that reintroducing the death penalty “is not part of the agenda of our political programme at the moment”.

However, his stance is broadly backed by his ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is currently drafting its manifesto for this year’s parliamentary elections.

His position will create new ructions with the European Commission, which has already taken Warsaw to task over its erosion of democratic norms and the rule of law, including its politicisation of the court system.

The EU has long condemned the death penalty as a serious violation of human rights and human dignity.

All EU governments comply with a European Convention of Human Rights (ECFR) protocol banning capital punishment in all circumstances, and a similar ban in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The EU bans trade in goods that can be used for torture and execution, and also supports NGOs that campaign against the death penalty around the world.

A devout Catholic, Mr Morawiecki noted that his views “disagree with the church’s teachings”, including the 1999 declaration by Polish Pope John Paul II that capital punishment is “both cruel and unnecessary”.

Poland’s last execution, of a 28-year-old rapist and murderer, was carried out by hanging in 1988.

The government abolished the death penalty in 1997, and in 2013 ratified the ECFR protocol banning capital punishment.

Source: inews.co.uk, Leo Cendrowicz, January 5, 2023

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