No supervision over Polish secret services

There is no actual supervision over Polish secret services, the Polish Supreme Audit Office (NIK) reported.

 “The prime minister is devoid of important supervision instruments, including a full knowledge on the internal procedures and a control of operational-reconnaissance activities in particular cases,” NIK president, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, wrote in the statement.

 For the last several months NIK conducted an audit on the governmental supervision over Polish secret services: the Internal Security Agency (ABW), the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA), the Intelligence Agency (AW), the Military Intelligence Service (SWW) and the Military Counter-intelligence Service (SKW).

 “The regulations limit the effective supervision capabilities over the secret services by the prime minister. (…) The legislative branch has obliged the prime minister to supervise secret services providing only limited possibilities of verifying information passed by secret services. This legal status has created a scenario in which the areas where the secret services are not externally supervised are supervising themselves,” Kwiatkowski added.

 NIK’s findings were not a surprise for a high level representative of one of the secret services in Poland. “It is true, we supervise ourselves. It happens in all of the services but with different commitment,” he told the Polish news portal TVN 24.

 According to the law, the prime minister can appoint a coordinating minister for secret services but for the past seven years the post has been vacant. The prime minister is also the head of the Collegium of Special Services Affairs, which consists of the internal affairs, foreign affairs, defense and finance ministers. The Collegium was also mentioned in NIK’s report.

 “We have established that the decisions made by the Collegium, which were passed to the heads of the special services in the form of commands were, to a large extent, not verified,” Kwiatkowski stated.

 Prime Minister Donald Tusk delegated his powers over the secret services to the minister of internal affairs, Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, through a special regulation. According to the regulation, Sienkiewicz can prepare projects regarding legal solutions for the secret services and require information regarding the planning and conducting of assigned tasks, Polish TVN 24 reported.

 “There is no kind of agreement between the heads of different services in regard of the authorization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is the same story with Donald Tusk. But he is just not interested in the secret services,” the vice-head of one of the Polish secret services told TVN 24.

 “Some of the heads of the agencies refuse to pass any information to Minister Sienkiewicz. They think that the prime minister’s regulation is second to the law that governs the ABW or CBA. There is no mention of passing all of the information the ministry in those regulations,” one of the former heads of secret service agency told TVN 24.

 The government has been working on the package of bills for the last three years, which would change the supervision structure over ABW, CBA, AW, SKW and SWW. So far only one bill, regarding the ABW, was submitted to the Polish Parliament.

Photo courtesy of Andrzej Zbrozek.