East European Constitutional Review

December 1998 also witnessed the final battle for the establishment of the Institute of National Remem-brance, an archive of the files of the pre-1989 secret services. As expected, on December 3, President Alexander Kwasniewski (formerly Democratic Left Alliance [DLA]) vetoed the bill...

...three-fifths majority required to overrule the president's veto... On December 18, the Sejm voted to overrule the president's veto.

...a Senate amendment, approved by the opposition and some EAS members (including the two EAS ministers), empowered the prosecutor general's office to veto privatization decisions made by the Ministry of the Treasury. According to FU, the law as amended would allow the office to encroach on the ministry's competence as well as slow the progress of privatization... FU called on the president to veto the act, which he did, on January 27.

East European Constitutional Review

Since coming to power in 1997, the EAS-Freedom Union (FU) coalition has seen many of its legislative projects killed by the vetoes of President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

...Eventually, the ruling coalition proposed three tax rates: 19, 29, and 36 percent in 2000; 19, 28, and 35 percent in 2001, and just two rates-18 and 28 percent thereafter. The bill also eliminated many tax deductions, with only the house-renovation benefit and a provision for families with two or more children remaining intact.

...November 28, when President Aleksander Kwasniewski (DLA) vetoed the tax bill, asserting that it violated the social-justice principle called for in Art. 2 of the Constitution, and that its passage had been highly irreg-ular. Kwasniewski's move outraged the government. Balcerowicz considered resigning, setting off shock-waves in the economy-the zloty weakened, and the stock market took a dive. On December 2, parliament responded to the presidential veto, with 200 deputies voting to uphold and 225 voting to overrule. Because the proponents of tax reform fell significantly short of the majority (265 votes) they needed to overrule a pres-idential veto, the previous tax rates were preserved.

...the Polish Senate had adopted the toughest antipornography law in Europe.

...the provision was passed by a vote of 210 to 197 with 19 abstentions. At this point, President Kwasniewski entered the fray. He vetoed the law on the last possible date, March 27. The president justified his veto with the claim that educa-tion- not a ban-could best combat pornography. Moreover, the president and many of the ban's oppo-nents disliked the law because it did not define pornography, handing dangerous discretionary powers to judges and prosecutors, who could apply the law unpredictably, according to their personal views.