Speaking on Thursday, Tusk said the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, had a chance to back changes that he said mattered across party lines.
He argued that the reform of the Code of Criminal Procedure was needed after years of damaging justice policy under former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who served in the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government.
The bill would have barred the use of unlawfully obtained evidence, including evidence gathered through criminal acts such as illegal wiretaps.
It also aimed to curb the use of pre-trial detention, strengthen defense rights at an early stage of proceedings, protect confidential contact between suspects and lawyers, and shift more procedural power from prosecutors to courts.
Under the proposal, the threat of a severe sentence alone would no longer be enough in many cases to justify pre-trial detention, and the maximum sentence threshold in that rule would rise from eight to 10 years.
Nawrocki vetoed the bill in mid-March. His office said the decision was driven by concern for public safety and the state’s ability to fight the most serious crime.
The president’s team also argued that some of the proposed changes could make criminal proceedings harder to conduct.
The veto has triggered an unusual backlash from hard-core soccer supporters. Fan groups at several stadiums protested last weekend, arguing that the current rules allow people to be held for long periods without sufficient evidence.
Tusk said the dispute had turned into a grim confrontation between fans and the president, but made clear that the parliamentary vote would decide whether the reform survives.
In Poland, the lower house can override a presidential veto with a three-fifths majority in the presence of at least half of all lawmakers. If all 460 deputies take part, 276 votes are needed.