The ban has been imposed in connection with “foul underhand tactics” used by Mularczyk against the Open Dialogue Foundation. It will be in effect from 2 June to 2 September.
The decision was taken early last month by the Rules Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly, which is composed of parliamentarians delegated to Strasbourg by the national parliaments of CoE states, also including Polish MPs and senators.
The Parliamentary Assembly ended its summer session in the second-to-last week of June and begins its autumn session once the ban on Mularczyk is over, which is therefore now only of symbolic value.
The case concerns the dispute surrounding the Open Dialogue Foundation (ODF), in which Mularczyk implicated British Tory Ian Liddel-Grainer, head of the Conservatives in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Subsequent to the adoption of a January resolution on the endangered independence of judges in Poland, Liddel-Grainer, inspired by Mularczyk, attacked ODF and Polish parliamentarians cooperating with the Foundation. He alleged that they broke the rules when passing resolutions and amendments allegedly at the dictates of the ODF, or by allowing unauthorised and “unprecedented” access by ODF activists to members of the Parliamentary Assembly and to the institution’s premises.
As a matter of fact, ODF only benefited from the standard rules of operation of NGOs on issues addressed by the Council of Europe.
The conflict enraged, among others, the German Social Democrat Frank Schwabe, head of the centre-left faction, who publicly inquired as to why attempts were made to smear human rights defenders and NGOs in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In particular, the subject of the Rules Committee’s deliberations convened on 2 June were the allegations made by Mularczyk and Liddel-Grainer against individual members of the Parliamentary Assembly, who were supposedly allowing “unacceptable influence” on their actions on the part of ODF.
As a result of their refusal to apologise and withdraw their slanderous comments, both Mularczyk and Liddel-Grainer were banned from speaking at the Parliamentary Assembly for three months.
Mularczyk has not responded to our questions posted to his parliamentary email address.
Source: wyborcza.pl
