Speaking after a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Kosiniak-Kamysz, who also serves as defence minister, argued that reforming the justice system is impossible without presidential involvement.
He compared the previous Law and Justice (PiS) administration of modelling itself on the Sanacja, an authoritarian-leaning government that ruled Poland from a 1926 military coup until the outbreak of the Second World War.
Koiniak-Kamysz accused PiS of similarly trying to concentrate power to push the country away from democratic norms.
He said the previous government centralised control of the judiciary and drafted legislation to entrench its own position, aiming ultimately "to reshape Poland's entire political system."
Kosiniak-Kamysz said those changes cannot be undone without presidential cooperation.
Both former President Andrzej Duda and his successor Karol Nawrocki, he maintained, have obstructed efforts to improve transparency and rebuild trust in the courts.
"There is currently no willing partner – in the presidency or the opposition – to resolve this mess, which endangers citizens' legal security."
His comments came as Prime Minister Donald Tusk, speaking in Paris, addressed Monday's ruling by a Warsaw court refusing a European arrest warrant for former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who faces charges linked to a state fund intended to support victims of crime.
Tusk said judges had deemed the warrant pointless since Ziobro's whereabouts in Europe could not be established, though he noted some prosecutors disagreed with that assessment.
He contended that procedural disputes were overshadowing the more pressing issue: the state's ability to prosecute alleged wrongdoers, including former politicians.
Asked whether he still trusted Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek, Tusk called him "truly determined" but, like his predecessor Adam Bodnar, essentially constrained by the same presidential roadblocks facing prosecution reform.
He admitted he had underestimated how hard it would prove to bring former officials to justice, as he had once promised to do quickly.
(ał)
Source: PAP