On December 19, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Bart?omiej Sienkiewicz, dismissed the current authorities of the Public Television, Polish Radio, and Polish Press Agency and appointed new supervisory boards. The minister took these actions after the resolution of the Sejm "on the restoration of legal order, the impartiality and reliability of public media and the Polish Press Agency." PiS (Law and Justice party, part of the United Right), which previously filled the leadership positions in public media, contests the legality of these changes and has begun a rotational occupation of these companies' headquarters. On December 23, President Andrzej Duda vetoed the budget related act, according to which (as in recent years), public media would be co-financed from the state budget, this time a total amount of 3 billion PLN. Duda justified the veto with "gross violation of the Polish Constitution" by the Minister of Culture and submitted a draft of the act that does not include funds for public media. Consequently, with the blocking of financing, on December 27, the minister announced that he had put the public media into liquidation.
- The minister made changes in the supervisory boards and management of public media, citing the Commercial Companies Code. He was making these decisions as the body exercising the State Treasury's ownership rights, as he owns 100% of the shares in the companies - hence the minister conducted a one-person general shareholders' meeting. Sienkiewicz changed the supervisory boards, which then replaced the managements of the companies. Thus, he bypassed the National Media Council, established during government of PiS, which until now appointed the managements of these media. In other words, Sienkiewicz did not take into account the specificity of public media, whose status is defined, among others, by the Broadcasting Act and the Act on the Polish Press Agency. Instead, he treated them like other State Treasury companies.
- In December 2016, the Constitutional Tribunal (CT) ruled that the minister responsible for State Treasury cannot appoint and dismiss public media managers at the expense of the National Broadcasting Council (NBC), existing since 1993. However, PiS government did not implement this ruling, as the lower house of the Polish parliament, Polish Sejm (with PiS votes) earlier passed the Act on the National Media Council (NMC) and an amendment to the Broadcasting Act. Under these documents, the newly appointed NMC selects public media managements. Moreover, in the reasoning of the CT's ruling, it was indicated that the NMC should not take over the competences of the NBC, but this ruling itself did not concern the National Media Council.
- Sienkiewicz believes that the Tribunal de facto recognized the NMC as unconstitutional, but the previous government did not implement the CT's ruling and did not restore to the NBC the competences that would allow it to make changes in public media. Since the NMC's rights are unconstitutional, and the NBC has not regained its powers, the minister used procedures from the Commercial Companies Code. Lawyers supporting the minister emphasize that the law granting rights to the NMC features so-called secondary unconstitutionality - the legislator duplicated a provision recognized by the CT as unconstitutional, so the Tribunal no longer has to speak on this subject. Moreover, the minister could not currently direct this law to the Tribunal, because this is defective (it concerns the so-called doubler-judges appointed by PiS to previously filled three positions). Meanwhile, any statutory changes in the NMC and NBC could be vetoed by the president, defending PiS's interests.
- However, the legality of changes is questioned not only by PiS, but also by some lawyers and journalists who are unfavorable to PiS, including Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. They point out that the provisions of the National Media Council Act are so-called lex specialists, and the minister cannot decide on his own that he will not apply the act until it is changed. Moreover, in their opinion, if the minister refers to the CT's ruling, then the competences regarding changes in public media managements should return to the NBC (where the majority is in hands of PiS appointees). In other words, in their view, the minister is violating the applicable law, which was created in violation of the Polish Constitution - moreover, he is acting against the independence of public media from the executive power.
- PiS is fighting to restore the status quo by using public bodies filled with its appointees. The head of the National Broadcasting Council has applied to the National Court Register to prevent the registration of changes in the management of TVP (Polish Television), which were made by the supervisory board appointed by the Minister of Culture. Meanwhile, on December 26, the National Media Council chose its own president of TVP. This means, that it was de facto a referendary entering the changes in the NCR, who would have to decide who was ultimately the president of TVP.
- However, Minister Sienkiewicz utilized the president's veto to implement a plan B, which is to put the public media into liquidation in accordance with the Commercial Companies Code. The minister may argue that the lack of additional funding threatens their insolvency. At the same time, it ends the dispute over who legally manages the public media - as a 100% shareholder, the minister appoints liquidators, who are 'his' management. At the same time, the president, by vetoing the funding provision, becomes 'guilty' of putting the public media into liquidation and removing PiS representatives from their positions. At this point, it is unlikely that the minister will actually seek to liquidate the companies – especially since he emphasized the possibility of reversing this decision. However, as part of this process, he may make personnel changes in the media.
- Regardless of legal doubts, changes in public media are fulfilling one of the political objectives of the new government. One of the main promises of the new coalition was the depoliticization of TVP, which, despite elections and changes in power, continued to conduct pro-PiS propaganda. Even the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, while criticizing the current way changes are being implemented, emphasized that the previous operation of public media 'strikingly contradicted what public media should be in a democratic rule-of-law state.' The quick change of this situation will please most voters who critically evaluated TVP's activities - according to a CBOS (Social Opinion Research Center in Poland) study in 2012, only 12% of Poles considered public television to be unreliable, while in 2023 it is nearly half of respondents. Sienkiewicz met the expectations of the electorate, which demanded an end to right-wing propaganda at public expense.
- The new government has shown effectiveness - it promised to solve the problem and kept its word. For voters, legal issues may be incomprehensible, but the political fact of 'recapturing television' is obvious. Previous government of Donald Tusk (2007-2015) was accused of a lack of settlement of PiS government (2005-2007). Now the new power sends a signal that it will not be treat predecessors slightly, if they broke or bent the law.
- For PiS, this case is doubly lost. On one hand, it does not favor the party to have to defend media that are widely poorly rated. Secondly, PiS will now be deprived of a huge propaganda apparatus before the upcoming local and European elections in April-June 2024, which can be devastating for the party. A significant reduction in media exposure and lack of its own propaganda will make campaigning difficult. Right-wing television stations favorable to PiS do not have large viewership.
- The intensification of the conflict and strengthening of polarization forces PiS to radicalize its message. The conciliatory narrative from Mateusz Morawiecki's exposé on December 11 disappears, and, in its place, the party talks of an assault on the constitution and democracy, breaking freedom of speech, and limiting media pluralism. 'Defending public media' will cement PiS, which began to lose coherence after losing power. However, this may at the same time discourage moderate voters from this party. In the longer term, the winner of this dispute will be Donald Tusk, who partially satisfied the revanchist expectations of his electorate, showed firmness and effectiveness, and at the same time deprived PiS of a place that the party used for intense propaganda.
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