Local Protests Continue as Government Ignores all Standards

An emergency protest was held today in the council of the local government of North Praga district where an unpredecented incident in Polish history occured on the orders of the Mayor: the city finally decided that everything done in this district for the last three years was illegal and that they would go back to the council session from Dec.27, 2006, elect a new chairperson of the council, and revote everything from the last three years!

This was an amazing move thought up by the ruling coalition who have ensured that people giving legal interpretations will support them, even though the farse was in clear contradiction to all norms and even the statute of the city.

On Dec. 27, 2006, the former chairperson of the local council, since promoted to the parliament by her party, called a break in the session - and never came back. The majority of councilpeople voted to reopen the session and replace the chairperson. Since that time, there has been a legal battle going on as to whether the local government has been functioning properly. A decision was made on this - but it turned out that the decision-maker was not the competent authority. This decision, pushed by the Mayor and her party, had no legal weight and the authority even himself admitted that he was not legally competent to decide this matter. The court then decided one and a half years ago that there is no legal government working in North Praga.

Anarchists have pointing this out numerous times, saying that not only is there no reason to morally respect the government's decisions, but it isn't even legitimate according to law. They have called for all the politicians to go home, stop taking money and making decisions.

Some politicians have been complaining about this situation since it started 3 years ago, but City Hall has been trying to solve it by arbitrary decisions by organs controlled by the ruling party instead of dealing with the legality of the situation. Suddenly, on Jan.4, City Hall decided that the meeting from Dec. 27, 2006 had to be continued and that everything from the last three years had to be revoted - even those none of these things were topics from the session in 2006. Selected councilpeople, not all, were informed at 4PM that there would be this unheard of meeting taking place the next day.

According to the statute of the city, all council sessions must be called with at least 7 days notice. The regulations state the manner in which notice must be given, which includes publication in the official bulletin, notifying the council and notifying the public. Meetings not called in such a manner are invalid.

Despite attempts to hold a basically secret meeting in which all decisions from the last 3 years could be potentially reversed, people found out to it, thanks to the growing number of informants in the government who are disgusted with this all and are acting to leak information to the public. A couple dozen local activists and political observers showed up to vocally oppose this farse.

Representatives from City Hall holding the meeting were eventually forced to admit that the meeting was not called in accordance with regulations but claimed that it was "binding anyway". There was a lot of hot protest. People demanded to get a list from the Mayor of which laws can be legally broken and anarchists demanded that everybody be recalled and claimed that "we prefer real anarchy". State-controlled TV, which only appeared for a few minutes for symbolic filming, announced the ruling party's line: that everything was done according to plan.

Besides problems with calling the session, the agenda of the meeting was only given at the meeting - and even then, it had the wrong date on it. Agendas also should be given in advance. Besides this, the law requires that if anything is voted on, the text of the proposal must be given in writing with the agenda - nothing was attached. The people from the City Hall called this "absurd" since these things were already voted on - why should the contents of the motions be included?

Local residents are in complete disbelief at what happened in the neighbourhood. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of Poland. Many people are commenting that the government didn't turn back the clock only to 2006, but to Stalinist times.

After some hours, most politicians and residents left this meeting in disgust noting that the parties which wanted to force this meeting would even hold their votes at a gas station and the city would consider it legal.

This was perhaps the most dramatic but not the only huge political abuse which occurred within the last week.

The Ministry of the Economy also committed an abuse which the Tenants' Defense Committee learned about via an employee of the Ministry. In the middle of December, we learned that this Ministry was sponsoring a draft bill to amend the Act on Protecting Tenants' Rights, which is currently under attack by the neoliberals. We only heard about one proposal containing in the bill and, it was quite surprising to come from this Ministry as this is not the ministry responsible for housing. We tried to get a copy of the legalislation and the newspapers announced that tenants groups would protest this.

According to the law, at this stage, the draft bill should be published on the web page of the Ministry and sent to "social consultation". Every organization has the right to send an opinion about proposed legalislation, even though the Minister does not have to invite them to "consulation". There should be at least one month from publication of the bill for "consultation" before it is sent to the Parliament.

We were not given a copy of the legislation, which the bureaucrats claimed "would be published". Two weeks after the Ministry supported the bill, on Dec. 30, we were sent an apparently raw copy of the bill, with the notice that the Minister, without publishing the bill or announcing social consulatation, put a deadline for social consulatation of the bill as Dec. 31. And Dec. 31, the Ministry was open only until 12PM. Despite the complete rush, the Tenants Defense Committee and another organization from Krakow actually met the deadline.

The social consulatation means absolutely nothing - it is only a symbolic trace of protest. But the Committee was able to reveal the "secret bill" and it's opinion on the effects, which are completely shocking.

Amongst the changes the Ministry wants to introduce in its secret bill are: removing limitations to how many times a year a landlord can raise rent (currently they can do it only once every 6 months); reducing the notice period to evict people from reprivatized houses; removing most responsibility for finding replacement housing; allowing the constitutionally forbidden eviction into the streets for people with no shelter (which occurs anyway, but it currently illegal); allowing landlords to raise rents without giving a reason; reducing the period in which tenants can contest rent increases; allowing owners, including the city, to evict people without giving a reason; allowing the city to evict people from public housing who let unauthorized people live there even for free. (In other words, if you invite a partner, husband, wife or other member of a family to live with you without permission, you can be kicked out!)

The third notable incident involves local authorities, notably the Mayor of the downtown district. The Tenants' Defense Committee successfully intervened in the case of the city wanting to cut off gas for 107 families in public housing blocks on one street in an area slated for gentrification. The city housing authority claims that the gas installations were unsafe so gas had to be cut off. This is one of the ways that the city lowers the standards of housing to attempt to drive any tenants. The next step would be to declare the building unsafe for inhabitance. However, the gas inspectors when confronted with protests, confirmed in writing that there were only minor problems which could be fixed immediately. Some they fixed on the spot. The safety inspector for the local housing authority promised on camera to get the rest of the problems fixed.

The local Mayor (a position equal to borough president), then went on the offensive claiming that this was not right and that other regulations were violated. However, he apparently made these specifications up: the regulations state something else. But apparently the whole political machine is putting pressure on people to comply; the gas people have said, but will not officially state, that they are being "forced" to take measures to cut off gas and the media is apparently under direct pressure to stop reporting on the story. The tenants and the committee blocked the gas form being cut off a second time and tomorrow morning there is also an action. However, unless there is a numerous blockade 24/7, this action may not work. As it is, the actions start at about 7AM.

In the meanwhile, an independent expertise has determined that the main danger for the building is not the gas - but the electric installation. It is supposed that once gas is turned off, people will start using either makeshift gas cookers (a fire hazard), or electric cookers and heaters. There is a real danger that the latter would cause major problems, including a serious risk of an electrical fire.