Lubartów, August 2019
Power corrupts from monday or from saturday?
We go to court with the Mayor of Lubartów, Krzysztof Pasnik. The publicity of the office begins to deteriorate. We complain about the refusal to provide the content of the legal opinion issued for the draft resolution increasing the allowance of the councilors. As John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton stated in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton: "All power corrupts, and absolute power utterly corrupts."
We wonder when this fine line is crossed. We also wondered from which end the "visible" fish breaks down.
Soon after in the 2018 local government elections, he visited us in Lubartowie Christian Davies z The Guardian. This it was a long, a bit strange conversation because on the example did not understand why, in our opinion, the contact was made available by 12 councilors on first session, this Is for us "until". For him, this it was "only." We talked for quite a long time about how it works in small town, like in the attitude towards disclosure in offices. AND yes, walk around Lubartowie led us to City Hall. We were then able to talk to Krzysztof Paśnik, the new mayor. Of course, we talked about politics i disclosure in public life. The result of conversations with civic activists were texts in The Guardian "Poland's democratic spring: the fightback starts here" i Gazeta Wyborcza.
Like this looks less than ten months from our conversation? We turned to of the office of Fr. providing us with a legal opinion regarding the draft resolution on diet increases for councilors. Because its content in continues to raise our doubts.
Unfortunately, in the answers were already known to us from the previous case - another Lubartów Mayor, another authority - the same arguments. "Internal, unofficial, working document" and in not having the value of public information at all. The mayor also refused to issue an administrative decision, z what also in we met each other in our business. Legal opinion, Fr. we infer was used in the procedure of the aforementioned resolution on the amount of councilors' allowances was also the basis for the submitted amendments, so in our opinion, in Under no circumstances can it be treated as an internal working document. Leaving aside the doubts on subject of the nature of the working document / non-draft opinion was paid with public funds. Neither Grzegorz Gregorowicz - the author of the project, nor Krzysztof Paśnik financed with private pocket for lawyer services.
We have a valid City Statute. It is true that there is no uniform version, but in line with it, draft resolutions are reviewed as to their compliance with the law. Therefore, this legal opinion, as well as each opinion prepared for a specific draft resolution, is public information for us.
And so, after 10 months, the new government interprets transparency in its own way, or - in the old way, which we already know from the previous authorities. All in all, it went quickly, which is a pity.
In turn, our readers who ask why we do not write about various matters immediately, we answer - because we prefer to wait for the document than to disinform recipients.
And yes, we can smoothly move on to the question: