25 years after its abolition, in Poland back to the debate about death penalty. And to raise it is the prime minister of Warsaw and European ally of the Fratelli d’Italia, Mateusz Morawiecki, with a shocking statement during a question-and-answer session on Facebook. “In my opinion, The death penalty should be allowed for the most serious crimes‘ the conservative politician explained, then adding that he ‘did not agree with the teaching of the Church on this matter because I am a supporter of the death penalty’.
Morawiecki’s statement was prompted by a critic of the Polish government who provocatively asked whether the death penalty could prevent his executive from causing even more damage to society. Instead of condemning these statements or ignoring the intervention, the Prime Minister reacted seriously by emphasizing his positive position on the death penalty, although he a practice catholic. And he also said that the abolition of the death penalty, a legacy of the Soviet era, is one of them “premature invention”.
Poland abolished the death penalty in 1997 as it ditched some communist-era rules and prepared to join the EU. In 2013 Warsaw ratified a protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights which abolishes the death penalty altogether. Some opposition MPs, including Monica Faleynoted that such views are characteristic of authoritarian rulers.