Sejm to debate reprivatization
Parliamentarians this week are due to debate the long-awaited and contentious property restitution law.
More than a year after it was first sent to the Sejm, deputies are slated this week to debate on the latest version of a law that would grant former property owners the right to receive compensation for property lost between 1944 and 1962.
The debate, due this week, follows a failed bid two weeks ago by opposition leaders to organize a national referendum on the issue. In October, opposition politicians from the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), the Peasants Party (PSL) and the Labor Union (UP) introduced a motion in Parliament to give Poles a chance to have their say on the issue. If the call for a referendum had been passed, it would have derailed this government's attempt to solve the issue.
While voting down the referendum idea paved the way for this week's debate, restitution advocates predicted that the present draft bill had little chance of making it into the country's law books. Opposition parties who had been promoting the idea of a referendum on restitution will most likely prevent the bill from being voted into law, said Miroslaw Szypowski, chairman of the National Association of Revindication Organizations (OPOR).
According to Szypowski, opposition politicians could block progress on the bill by proposing changes, forcing the Sejm's speaker to redirect the draft law back for further work to the extraordinary parliamentary commission on reprivatization.
That would mean that rather than being put up for a vote in Parliament next week, the bill would be sent back to the committee for an overhaul, increasing the risk that the law won't be passed by the present Sejm.
In the aftermath of the presidential elections in which Solidarity Election Action (AWS) candidate Marian Krzaklewski was defeated by incumbent President Aleksander Kwasniewski, there have been calls for early elections. These demands increased last week after opposition leaders criticized the government's draft budget, introduced earlier this month. If Parliament does not pass the budget by March 15, the president could call for early elections next spring.
Restitution advocates predict that the so-called reprivatization law will get lost in the melee over next year's budget.
"If (opposition parliamentarians) introduce a large number of amendments, the Sejm won't vote on the law at all, but the bill will be sent back to the commission," Szypowski said. "That will play in favor of opposition (parliamentarians) who will draw (commission work) out so that this law won't see the light of day before Parliament is dissolved."
Opposition party officials have already declared that they will not back the current draft reprivatization legislation.
