Centralised, repressive, and non-transparent? The Law and Justice government's internal security policy re-examined

Since the Law and Justice party came to power in Poland in 2015, the government has carried out a series of reforms that critics say undermine or even dismantle democracy. While much of the controversy has centred on the question of whether or not the government is violating the constitution, there has been almost no consideration that what is happening is the continuation of a well-established, worrisome trend of highly dysfunctional practises. What is at stake is not only the rule of law and civil liberties, but also the effectiveness of the security apparatus, which remains in a state of constant instability and frustration. Over the past seven years, the administration has introduced significant changes to internal security. Adopting more stringent criminal law measures and expanding the powers of law enforcement agencies, combined with employing frequent amendments and ad hoc legislation, has become common practise. But at the same time, despite the fact that Poland is dealing with serious security challenges, such as the pandemic, the Belarus-European Union border crisis, and the consequences of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the apparatus has become a tertiary topic. In this paper, the most important aspects and possible future developments in the field of Poland’s contemporary internal security are examined. I argue that its main distinguishing feature is not a sudden antidemocratic shift but rather an acceleration of a process that had begun many years before – the process of slow but steady departure from the ambitious assumptions of the early 1990s.