Annual Report 2006
The Batory Foundation Debates
The Batory Foundation Debates are an attempt at establishing an independent meeting and discussion forum for politicians, professionals, public intellectuals and journalists. The Foundation has long organized conferences and seminars on transition in Poland, international affairs, Poland's foreign policy and the situation in Central and Eastern Europe. Our goal is to initiate public discourse on subjects important to the future of our state and the region.
In 2006 we launched a cycle of debates on Polish liberal democracy. We continued also debates on Polish foreign policy.
Polish liberal democracy cycle
Power of the media, power over the media
April 13, 2006
Panelists: Kamil Durczok (journalist, former presenter of TV News), Robert Krasowski (journalist, editor-in-chief Dziennik Polska Europa ¦wiat), prof. Andrzej Rzepiński (lawyer, Warsaw University, Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights), Jarosław Sellin (secretary of state, Ministry of Culture and National Heritage), Jacek Żakowski (columnist, Polityka weekly). Moderator: Krzysztof Skowroński (journalist, TVP Channel 1), Aleksander Smolar (President of Stefan Batory Foundation).
Do media in Poland perform a controlling role or do they mostly represent various political and economic interests, or even the interests of special branches? How much do they contribute to the strengthening of democracy and how much do they realize particular interests of their publishers or political powers behind them? To what extent do they represent real public interests and how do they create the reality that we live in? To what extent do they tame the populism of the Polish political scene and to what extent they contribute to its growth through increased tabloidization of the media and the shaping of the editorial policy to compete for the audiences and advertisers? These were the questions the invited guests tried to answer.
The debate was broadcast by the main channel of the public television TVP.
Constitution, law, justice.
A lecture by Prof. Marek Safjan, chairman of the Constitutional Tribunal
May 16, 2006
In his lecture, Professor Safjan spoke of the weak legal and constitutional culture in Poland, the attitudes of the elites toward the constitution, the dispute over the constitutional judiciary, and the shortcomings of the public constitutional debate. In his view, the public debate is limited to stereotypes and brought down to slogans on the building of the Fourth Republic and the introduction of the moral order, without engaging wider spheres of the society. There is no constitutional debate in Poland that would engage the society, nor is there a real battle for the change of the constitution. All we are dealing with are the arguments over the constitution in the closed circles of political elites, Safjan said. The debate held in this form loses from its sight the real problems that should be addressed first and become an axis of the debate over the shape of the state, such as: the form and role of the local government, the issue of the election laws, the system of the law, the scope, intensity and scale of state guarantees toward the citizen, the development of mechanisms setting out the relations between EU institutions, the methods of reforming the judiciary, the system and scope of guarantees of healthcare, the educational model in the universities. Before we begin talking about changes in the constitution, we should decide on what exactly needs to be changed in the state, Prof. Safjan argued. Only then should we decide if we need a new constitution and a reformed axiology to make those changes happen. In his opinion, most problems can be solved through the respect of the cannons of good faith and good practices in the sphere of the constitutional culture instead of the changes to the constitution.
Polish transcript of the lecture is available from www.batory.org.pl in the section Conferences and debates.
Justice versus the law
June 7, 2006
Panelists: Prof. Marian Filar (professor of law, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń), Janusz Kochanowski (Ombudsman), Prof. Wojciech Sadurski (professor of law, Dean of Law Department, European University, Florence), Prof. Andrzej Siemaszko (professor of law, director of Institute of Justice), Prof. Andrzej Zoll (professor of law, Jagiellonian University, former Ombudsman). Moderator: Aleksander Smolar (President of Stefan Batory Foundation).
With the appointment of the cabinet of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, the role and place of the law in the state became one of the fundamental topics of the public debate. A prominent role in the discussion has been taken by the problem of relations between the law and justice. A question arises whether the government's moves to bring the justice contradict the rules of law existing in the European system and to what extent the defense of the current law and procedures serves as an alibi for practices that contradict social perception of justice. Panelists, outstanding law professors, discussed the tension between justice and the law, the law as an instrument or limitation of governance, and situations when law leads to statutory lawlessness. They debated if the penal law and the anti-criminal policy might fail to address the social perception of justice and what is the role of the judge in a democratic state.
Whose Poland? What kind of Poland?
June 28, 2006
Panelists: Prof. Henryk Romański (director of Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences), Dariusz Gawin (Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, deputy director of Museum of Warsaw Uprising), Prof. Mirosława Marody (social scientist, Institute of Sociology, Warsaw University), Prof. Karol Modzelewski (historian, Wroclaw University), Prof. Jacek Rostowski (economist, Central European University, Budapest), Sławomir Sierakowski (social scientist, columnist, editor-in-chief of Krytyka Polityczna), Prof. Jerzy Szacki (sociologist, member of Polish Academy of Sciences), Prof. Piotr Wieczorek (professor of law, Warsaw University), Artur Wołek (political scientist,Nowy S±cz School of Business — National Louis University). Moderator: Aleksander Smolar (President of Stefan Batory Foundation).
The conference was an attempt to answer important questions pertaining to the situation in Poland after the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2005; a country politically dominated by the Law and Justice (PiS) and, what was difficult to imagine just a year earlier, governed by a coalition of PiS with the League of Polish Families (LPR) and Self-Defense (Samoobrona). Invited guests focused on the substance of the changes that are taking place and on the question of what kind of a political community and a system of institutions is emerging. Whose political, social and economic interests are served by the current government? How the current order in the country corresponds with the goals and experiences of Poland after 1989 and the ideals of social forces that led the transformation?
A selection of materials from the debate was published in a book. It is also available in the electronic form from www.batory.org.pl
Currency and democracy.
A lecture by Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz.
June 29, 2006
n his lecture, Prof. Balcerowicz spoke of relations between currency, democracy and the rule of the law, as well as of the limitations a good currency imposes on social freedom. The fact of the exchangeability or the lack of exchangeability of the currency has a political impact, said Prof. Balcerowicz. An exchangeable currency reduces the control of politicians over people. But there is also a problem of the value of currency, whether the currency keeps its value over time or is damaged because of excessive inflation. If the currency is being damaged, people pay an inflationary tax. One of the measures of the rule of the law is the extent to which those in power can impose this worst kind of taxation — the inflationary tax, without people's consent or without the consent of their representation. According to the lecturer, the protection of the stability of a modern currency requires: first, adoption of a strong external currency (like the dollar or the euro) and second, introduction of a common currency that gives reasons to believe it will be stable. The euro is such a currency for Poland, Balcerowicz said. A third condition is to have an independent central bank as an independent and professional guardian of the stability of the currency. The preservation of factual independence of the central bank is, with the assumption of the professional conducts of the bank, a guarantee of the protection of people from damages to the currency inflicted by politicians.
A cycle of debates Foreign policy
Polish wars. Iraq, Afghanistan...
December 4, 2006
Panelists: Stanisław Koziej (general, former Deputy Minister of Defense), Jan Rokita (MP), Radosław Sikorki (Minister of Defense), Adam Daniel Rotfeld (former Minister of Foreign Affairs), Jerzy Szmajdziński (MP, former Minister of Defense). Moderator: Aleksander Smolar (President of Stefan Batory Foundation).
The subject of the debate was the strategic, political and moral aspects of Poland's military involvement around the world, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Panelists discussed how Poland's engagement complies with the long-term strategy of the Polish presence in Europe and the world. How decisions to send soldiers abroad correspond with Poland's vision of European and Euroatlantic integration and how they comply with the visions of a safer world that respects human rights and evolves in the direction of democratic form of organization of public life? What must be done to ensure democratic control over decisions, the process and forms of engagement outside the country? What is the current status of legitimacy of foreign military operations that were not endorsed by the Security Council of the United Nations (Iraq)?
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