Restitution bill vetoed
By : Juliet D. Golden
Poland's decade-long bid to introduce property restitution legislation hit a dead-end last week when President Aleksander Kwasniewski opted to veto the bill passed by Parliament earlier this month.
In announcing his decision, the president criticized the bill for being too expensive and unfair. "The model of restitution proposed in this bill is very costly (and) burdened with risk due to imprecise calculations," Kwasniewski said.
The president also criticized harsh citizenship requirements included in the final version of the law, which excluded Polish expatriates and Jews living outside the country. Under the law passed by the Sejm three weeks ago, compensation for lost property would be granted only to former property owners registered as Polish citizens from Dec. 31, 1999.
"This contradicts the principles of a country based on the democratic rule of law and equality," Kwasniewski said.
While members of Kwasniewski's Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party and left-wing Peasants Party (PSL) had long been pushing for a presidential veto, the move elicited harsh criticism from government officials and politicians from the center and right of the political divide.
"The president catered to his own political supporters," said Deputy Treasury Minister Krzysztof Laszkiewicz. "This was a political decision."
Restitution activists predicted that the veto would open the way for an avalanche of lawsuits filed by property owners in courts inside Poland and around the world. They predicted that these settlements would end up draining more from the national coffers than the compensation plan outlined under the restitution bill.
"We have given up on waiting for a law," said Miroslaw Szypowski, chairman of the National Coalition of Revindication Organizations (OPOR). Now we are going to go to court and not for 50%, but for 100% losses, plus lost benefits of course."
In the case of property owners presently living in Poland, the treasury has estimated the value of property seized to be roughly zl. 95 billion ($23 billion), half of which would have been returned under the law vetoed last week. The government warned that the lack of a restitution bill would open the way to court-ordered settlements reaching up to zl. 270 billion ($65 billion).
The presidential decision came the same day as the New York State Assembly held a public hearing on the property claims of Polish Jews now living in New York. The hearing is tied to a class action suit filed almost two years in a Federal Court in Brooklyn on behalf of Holocaust survivors seeking the return of property taken in Poland during World War II by the Nazis or after the war by the Communist regime. In the absence of restitution legislation, lawyers who filed the class action suit are trying to pressure the Polish government to negotiate a settlement for Jewish property owners.
"I hope the outcome of this hearing is that the country of Poland will come to its senses and deal with the issue," said Edward Klein, one of the lawyers who filed the original class action suit in Brooklyn. "They are sticking their head in the sand making believe there's no problem here."
Property restitution will figure high on the agenda of Poland's Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski when he heads to Washington D.C. and New York next week to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and other U.S. officials along with Polish and Jewish groups. According to Foreign Ministry officials, Bartoszewski will emphasize that despite the presidential veto, solving the property restitution issue owners remains a key governmental priority.
"With the presidential veto, minister Bartoszewski will be able to explain in detail the position of the government and political leaders of Poland and our concern about the subject, and to repeat that we are for a quick-as-possible solution to the problem," said Grzegorz Dziemidowicz, spokesman for the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
