In the article “Row over Józef Burniak at the City Council session”, published in August 2008, we wrote that councillors had adopted a resolution on the expiry of the mandate of the former president of Bolesławiec. Burniak ceased to be a councillor because of a conditional discontinuance of criminal proceedings concerning the commission of an intentional offence prosecuted by public indictment.
Last September, similar consequences affected Adam Ciemięga, a councillor of the County Council. The doctor from Zebrzydowa was accused of misappropriating PLN 8,000 owed to SP ZOZ in Nowogrodziec. According to investigators, Adam Ciemięga conducted examinations of driving-candidate applicants at the public clinic, except that... privately.
The problem is that Burniak had to return his allowances, while Ciemięga did not. Why? It turns out that the two local governments interpret the electoral law differently. “A councillor should return the allowance. There is no doubt about this matter, and it is beyond discussion,” Jerzy Zieliński, Bolesławiec’s secretary, told the IstotneInformacje.pl portal. Asked why the county had not demanded that Adam Ciemięga return the money, he gave an evasive answer: “As far as the legal opinion is concerned, I can comment only on the basis of documents, and I do not know them.”
“Anyone whose mandate expired because of a conditional discontinuance of criminal proceedings is obliged to return the allowance,” claims Józef Burniak, who returned more than PLN 3,600 to the municipal government. As the former SLD councillor points out, city authorities threatened that if he did not return the money, the matter would end up in court. Burniak reviewed the documents and concluded that the municipal officials were right: “The regulations are clear and unambiguous. Councillor Ciemięga has a moral and legal obligation to return the allowances. The City Hall is 300 metres from the round building, yet different law applies in the two local governments.”
Bogdan Gursztyn, secretary of Bolesławiec County, holds a different view. “A resolution on the expiry of a mandate, adopted, for example, in the event of a councillor’s death, merely confirms something that has already occurred. In Mr Ciemięga’s case, that is, a conditional discontinuance of criminal proceedings, it is different,” Gursztyn explains. The councillors’ resolution may be challenged, and until the court issues a ruling on the resolution, the mandate and allowance are not withdrawn.
According to Gursztyn, Adam Ciemięga had seven days to appeal against the County Council’s decision. Had he done so, his mandate would have expired only on the day the court issued a ruling on the appeal. Until then, the councillor would have been entitled to the allowance. “This is a new provision of the electoral law; we interpreted it as it literally reads,” the secretary emphasises. He adds that the office would have acted the same way in Józef Burniak’s case.
If the county had interpreted the regulations in the same way as the city, the former councillor from the Bolesławiec area would have had to return more than PLN 10,000 to the local government.
(ii report)