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Parliament overturned on Oct. 9 President Lech Kaczyński's veto of a law separating the functions of the justice minister from those of the prosecutor general, with 264 deputies voting for the new legislation, 156 against and no abstentions. A total of 420 deputies took part in the vote, which required a three-fifths majority of 252 to overturn the veto.
The amended law comes into force March 31. Under its provisions, the prosecutor general would be appointed by the president for one six-year term from two candidates proposed by the National Council of the Judiciary and a new institution, the National Council of Prosecutors. A candidate must be a judge or prosecutor with at least 10 years of experience in the profession.
The president would have the right to remove a prosecutor general in mid-term in specific cases, for example if the prosecutor has been convicted of a crime or has presented a false vetting statement. Parliament would also have the right to remove a prosecutor general by a two-thirds majority on a motion from the prime minister if the premier had rejected the prosecutor's annual report or if the prosecutor has broken the oath of office.
The functions of justice minister and prosecutor general were merged into a single post after the 1989 Polish Round Table Talks. Earlier, in the communist period, there were two separate posts of justice minister and prosecutor general.
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